Damaged
by Experimental
Summary: A rash of murder for body parts leads the Summons Division to downtown Kumamoto, and into old case files. In pursuit of a man from the past believed dead and gone, but not quite the one they expected. [After series. Complete.]
1. Love is a burning thing

A/N: For the sake of this story, which takes place roughly around 2001-02, I've had to assume the Gensoukai arc winds up with no dimensional paradox or major characters killed, so readers will have to pardon a lack of references to any resolution on that bit.

* * *

Damaged

-o-

"Love is a burning thing/ and it makes a fiery ring/ Bound by wild desire/ I fell into a ring of fire."

S clutched the microphone loosely as he sang along with the words that were highlighted across the screen. His spirit and his body fell in stride with the melody. Tonight it really felt like the essence of Johnny Cash had come into him. He no longer needed the _katakana_ above the English lyrics to guide him. He no longer sang these words with the clumsy pronunciation of a Japanese. He grasped the emotion, the twang. This was his song. It was only a shame his coworkers couldn't be here tonight to see his performance. That would have to wait until Thursday night, when they typically went out as a group. To his constant dismay, they didn't share his addiction for the drug that is karaoke.

His only companion tonight was the high school student who had approached him in the street. He watched S's performance attentively, tapping one foot to the music, occasionally sipping from a can of Kirin beer S had sneaked into the room under his jacket. S normally didn't go in for the hook-up scene out of a combination of distaste for it and a general hesitant fear. But something about this seventeen-year-old boy's manner had made his offer impossible to refuse. S almost felt as though _he_ had been the one accosted, and that the boy would pay _him_ for his company at the end of the night instead of the other way around.

It was somewhat unnerving when he allowed himself to think about it too hard. Of course, the whole experience thus far had been, under the surface. S didn't try to convince himself that, on those occasions he caught himself watching young men on the train or in the crowd, he didn't feel a physical attraction. He couldn't deny that he felt the same way toward this boy's private school uniform as a lot of men his age seemed to toward seifuku. But this was the first time he had actually acted on that attraction. He knew that the boy he was with could be expelled for the fiasco, no questions asked, and it might even mean S's job. It wasn't like him to agree to something like this, but he welcomed the adventure, the thrill that came with knowing he might get caught.

Still, even though the boy's narrow eyes that seemed to promise things S only dreamed about, and the way his feminine mouth formed the words when it was his turn to sing did turn S on, it was not as though he expected any special favors from the boy. In that way he was safe, he kept assuring himself.

His voice, in a satisfactory imitation of Johnny Cash's, reverberated in the small space under the atmospheric lights as he sang:

"I fell into a burning ring of fire/ I went down, down, down/ and the flames went higher . . .

"And it burns, burns, burns—" S loved the feel of the vibration in his throat as he slid perfectly into the low notes. "The ring of fire/ the ring of fire. . . ."

He closed his eyes as the song wrapped up, relishing that rush that came every time he finished a song well. For a moment, he could imagine himself a star, before the shy exterior of his average salaryman persona closed back over him, like a case over a guitar. The boy beside him applauded and said "Wow, amazing," or some equally insincere thing. Which didn't bother S. He didn't agree to this arrangement out of a desire for sincerity.

When S's score came back, it was over ninety percent.

The boy whistled. "New high score! Man, I wish I could sing English like that."

"I just practice that particular song a lot is all." S sat down on the sofa beside his, feeling nervous again at the compliment.

And at the boy's gaze, which never seemed to leave some part of S's person or another. The boy practically purred as he said, "I'm no expert on country music, but that's got to be as good as the original—if not better. I bet you're the hit of all the office parties. You're an AB-type, aren't you?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"I can just tell. I'm one too."

There he went again. S could feel his cheeks burning. He wished the boy's selection would hurry up and begin.

As though reading his mind, a bold enka piece started up, filling the room with a loud, brassy melody. Still the boy's eyes remained fixed on him.

S forced a laugh. "You must have input the wrong number or something. This isn't your song, is it?"

The boy looked toward the screen as though just realizing where he was.

"Oh yeah," he said. "That's mine."

But he didn't reach for the microphone, even though the intro was nearly over.

"You're joking, right? I mean, there's nothing wrong with it, but I didn't think a kid like you would like this kind of music."

"I like the sadness in it," the boy said to the screen as he stood, and S was momentarily taken aback. The melody sounded so good-natured. But then he checked himself: As a country music fan, he should have known better.

The hand pushing against his shoulder startled him back to the present.

He slouched against the back of the sofa, too stunned to protest right away when the boy straddled his thighs and leaned close. He took the lapels of S's blazer in his hands and gazed down at S's face with a lazy smile on his lips—the kind of smile that reminded S of Donatello's David standing over Goliath's severed head. It was almost too good to be true: the boy's breath coming slow and heavy, the uniform hugging his narrow waist and thighs so perfectly, the weight of his hard, young body pressed so close to S. It was certainly more than S had bargained for.

"H-hold on," he said. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Seducing you. What does it look like I'm doing?"

"But this wasn't part of the deal. I said I'd pay you to sing with me, right? This would be . . . This is going against the rules, isn't it?"

The boy snorted. "What rules?"

"Unspoken rules. . . . How should I know? I thought one of the conditions to these sorts of things was that there wouldn't be anything sexual."

The boy shrugged. "Sure, that's what everyone _says_. You really expect me to believe you just brought me along to hear you sing? I know you're attracted to me." His lips brushed against S's neck, his waxing erection against S's stomach. And S had to admit, he was attracted. "Otherwise you wouldn't have hooked up with me."

"Still . . . I can't . . . You're not . . ."

"I'm seventeen. Besides, who's going to notice in a place like this?"

Probably no one. There was only one person at the front desk, and the private rooms were soundproofed. Inside, the music drowned out any noise they could make. But it was exactly that false sense of security that often led people headlong into trouble.

Like now.

"Look, I'll give you the money now, okay?" S tried. "You don't have to stick around the whole three hours. Just . . . forget I ever asked you to come along."

He tried to push himself up, but the boy wouldn't let him. "Come on. You think I want your money?" he chuckled in S's ear. "Nah . . . You want to get rid of me, you're gonna have to pay me with something a little more valuable. . . ."

Shit, S swore under his breath; he was getting mugged. Or worse, blackmailed. "I knew this was a bad idea—"

"_Naa_ . . . Do you believe in monsters?"

Taken aback by the randomness of his question, S noticed the unnatural chill on the boy's breath too late. A sharp, shooting pain in his right side forced the breath from his own lungs. He looked down to see the butt end of a metal instrument clutched in the boy's left hand. It took him another moment to realize the rest of it was buried inside his own body.

When he did, his survival instinct kicked in. He lashed out at the boy, who hissed and let go of the instrument, apparently not expecting a fight. S tried to sit up. His side burned like nothing he'd ever felt before, but if he could just make it to the door, he could yell down the hall to the hostess. That might be all he needed to do to scare the boy off until help could arrive.

The boy's elbow in his throat prevented him, though, and he fell awkwardly across the sofa in a spasm of coughing.

His vision blurred. In a queer, disconnected way, he knew he was going into shock. The last thing he knew before blacking out was that lovely boy sitting on top of him, singing as he pulled out the scalpel wet with S's blood. Like an angel about to deal the merciful blow, gleefully warbling those grave lines that had been set to such an ironic rhythm:

". . . . And while praying for your happiness/ I get away each time/ The heartbreak express."

It seemed to S like the most terrifying thing he had ever heard.

-o-

It wasn't the gentle opening and closing of the front door that caused him to stir from his chair but the loud, ungraceful thud that followed soon afterward.

He got up and went to the darkened entryway, and found the boy sitting on the landing, bracing himself with both hands and breathing heavily. A plastic grocery bag was dumped unceremoniously beside him, and this was not wholly inconsistent with the blood that was smeared on his hands and uniform jacket, and now the hardwood.

"You're back early," the man said by way of observation.

As though for his sake, the boy regained control of his breathing. Then, after a moment, he reached down to remove his shoes. "I'm hungry," he muttered. "And tired."

"Did you find what you needed?"

In response the boy merely pushed the bag toward the man's feet. With shaking limbs, he slowly raised himself to his own. "He took a piece of me with him this time, though," he said through a grim smile once he had steadied himself. He pushed up the cuff of his sleeve and revealed three jagged lines cut in the skin of his arm where his date's fingernails had raked him in a moment of panic. They oozed rather than bled freely, but were ugly and deep and red nonetheless.

The man adjusted his glasses, then took the boy's wrist in one hand and turned it toward the light to better examine it, no concern for the body it belonged to. Nor did the boy seem to mind. He stared at the wounds with empty eyes, while the other studied them through the thorough, scrutinizing gaze of a physician. Gently, the man probed the affected area. "Does this hurt?"

The boy shook his head slowly in response. Nor did the man expect him to answer in the affirmative.

He sighed. "You must learn to be more careful. You know your cells can't heal themselves like they used to. They are fighting as hard as they can to hold you together as it is. If you do anything to disrupt that delicate balance, I don't know how much help I will be able to give you."

"I'm sorry, Sensei," the boy said, but a sarcastic edge had crept into his narrow eyes.

But that was only what the man liked to see, that cynical spirit that reminded him so much of his own. That reminded him of his brother. He smiled and lowered his eyes beneath his light hair as he tenderly tugged the cuff back into place. Then smoothed the collar of the rumpled uniform jacket. Then pushed back the hair that clung stubbornly to the side of the boy's face with a pale, slender finger. "Don't apologize to _me_, Fujisawa," he spoke softly to the boy. Patiently, seductively. "Lord knows this new development may actually work to our advantage. And you have done well. Soon we shall see if these little performances of yours occasion the attention we require, won't we?"

He leaned close and brushed his lips over the boy's crown, cupping the jaw that felt so inhumanly cold in the palm of his hand—as cold as a corpse. Murmuring: "My beautiful golem."

The smile was apparent in the boy's voice as he echoed, "Thank you, Muraki-sensei."


	2. Colder, colder, ice cold

The situation was all too familiar to the shinigami. Another rash of deaths of disturbing nature, another set of gruesome crime scene photographs laid out on the briefing room table.

"There are four victims that we know of," Tatsumi explained as he glanced down at the array. With one hand on his hip, the other on the table, he affected the pose of a seasoned police detective, soul-weary of the daily grind that brought those in their profession nothing but death but trudging dutifully through nonetheless. He sighed a bit as he ran down the list of details that seemed all too familiar. "All salarymen between the ages of twenty-five and forty, in good physical health, blood type AB. All found in downtown Kumamoto, times of death generally after sundown. Other than that, there is nothing to suggest a connection between any of the victims. It would seem they were chosen at random."

Tsuzuki crossed his arms. "Except for the shared blood type. That must be significant."

"Certainly." Tatsumi pushed his glasses higher up the bridge of his nose. "Shared blood type, and shared MO. Preliminary examinations concluded each of the victims was missing his liver, which must have been excised just before or just after time of death." Gingerly, as though fearful of contamination, he touched each of the photographs in turn, running down the list: "The first victim was found in a karaoke booth, the second in a restaurant toilet. The third was discovered in a train station by a janitor. In addition to his liver, part of his brain stem was removed."

"Sounds like someone's sick version of a treasure hunt. A grocery list of human body parts. Are we thinking an organ trafficking ring?"

"If it is, it's an awfully strange one. As you can see, the victims' hearts were removed as well, and dressed up in this . . ." Tatsumi struggled to find the right word. "_Unusual_ fashion, but the killer did not take them with him like he did the other organs."

"And he's getting bolder every time. A station is a pretty open place to commit a murder, let alone a chop job like this."

"On the other hand, the evening crowds do provide some sense of anonymity. It's easier for him to come and go without being recognized, evidenced by the corpse's not being discovered until well after midnight. Then there's the last victim, also found in a private karaoke room. His liver was removed and—"

"Wait, don't tell me. His heart."

"Bingo."

For all appearances, Hisoka was not paying particularly attention to the parley, but he soaked up the information as he bent close to the photographs, studying them in all their gory detail. The crime scenes were anything but clean. The victims all but basted in their own blood, which stained their ubiquitous business suits and ties so dark it was almost difficult to tell where fabric ended and skin began. The cause of death, however, was not so hard to determine. Each, including the one missing part of his brain, exhibited two points of entry on the torso, both performed with a precision not so much surgical as it was like the methodical manner of a frog dissection in a high school biology class: a long slit in the right side from which the liver was removed, and a gaping hole in the chest cavity allowing visibility to the heart.

Examining the latter part carefully, it became apparent that the killer had removed the heart completely before replacing it—on top of a gold foil cake doily. It reminded Hisoka precisely of those religious icons in which Jesus and Mary's hearts glow with an astral light that is visible right through their bodies. Whether the intent was to create a parallel between them and the victims, or some more blasphemous motive was involved, it was a truly disturbing effect. He could only imagine the horror of the respective employees who had discovered the bodies.

Moreover, there was a clinicalness to them that sent a chill down Hisoka's spine. It hinted at a killer who was at once detached and objective about death and morbidity, and yet possessed a confident recklessness, an emotional involvement with the crime if not with the victims. A mix of opposites just like the victims' AB blood. The key, Hisoka was convinced, was in the heart.

"It's a calling card," he said. "The other organs might point to a black market trafficking scheme, except for the brain stem. It's not like a person could transplant that kind of part. But that doesn't explain the position of the hearts."

"The cake doilies could indicate some kind of cannibalistic ritual," Tsuzuki tried with a shrug. But Tatsumi remained silent.

Hisoka shook his head. For once he did not at all feel like making a jibe about his partner and food. "No. It has to be a religious reference. I just don't get the significance behind it." He looked up. "In any case, I don't see why Enma would get involved in a serial murder case. It's more of a concern for the local authorities. There's nothing about these men's cases that really concerns Meifu, is there, Tatsumi?"

For a moment, Tatsumi just held his gaze. Then he shook his head. "The victims have all gone through judgment and processing without any incidents."

"Here comes the catch," Tsuzuki said with a knowing smile. When none came, his expression fell. "What? You mean that?"

"Tsuzuki," Hisoka said, "isn't there something about how these men died that strikes you as familiar? The _Queen Camellia_ case, Kyoto. . . . The deceased in both those cases were found with their hearts cut out or missing as well. There was a ritual involved then just as there is here. And in the latter, the pattern for choosing victims was even less developed than this."

"You're saying Muraki's involved."

Hisoka nodded resolutely. "We can't rule that out as a very real possibility. Can we, Tatsumi?"

He looked to the secretary for support, but however much the two of them wished Tatsumi would deny his assertion, he could not. Nor, however, could he confirm it. "You know Enma never says what he's thinking so overtly. He only hands down the cases. We for our parts just have to trust his august judgment."

He gathered up the manila folders that were fanned across the table top, tucking the crime scene glossies back into them, and pushed them toward the two. "The rest of the information is in here. Police reports, medical examiner's notes, witness statements, as well as the victims' testimonies, patchy as they are." He flashed them a sympathetic smile. "I think you'll find plenty of reading material in there to keep yourselves occupied for a while."

He wasn't kidding. The two divided the stack between them, and even into the lunch hour they found themselves discussing the contents aloud at their desk, trading interesting snippets of information between bites. It was not the sense of duty that motivated them to pursue this particular case so doggedly. If they were honest, they were both tacitly driven by the persistent thought that there was something here they were supposed to recognize, some clue that was meant for them.

"Listen to this," Tsuzuki said, standing with excitement over the new information. "The investigators at the scene of the fourth murder reported that that victim fought back and managed to take a piece of his killer with him. They found human tissue and blood under his fingernails."

Hisoka looked up from his own folder, his lunch all but forgotten beside him. "That's something. Have they identified the perp?"

Tsuzuki's shoulders slumped. "The DNA's still in processing. That could take a while. . . . But you and I know who it'll be."

His partner let out a small sigh. "Don't get your hopes up, Tsuzuki."

"Huh?"

"Eyewitness statements don't say anything about any man fitting Muraki's description, and I doubt they'd miss someone as conspicuous as him even if he were traveling incognito. In fact, the hosts at three of the establishments insist they saw the victims enter with a teenage boy, wearing a gray high school uniform of the private school kind, between sixteen and eighteen years of age."

At her desk behind theirs, Wakaba paused in typing her own report to listen.

"That fits with the victims' statements in judgment as well." He picked up another open folder: "They all said they were accompanied by an attractive teenage boy. No name, of course, and everything about the actual moment of their deaths is a blur. For all they know, one minute they were enjoying themselves, the next they were attacked by a monster."

"Naturally. They must have tag-teamed the men."

"Funny thing, though," Hisoka continued, disregarding his partner's hypothesis, "none of those hosts ever saw a boy leave. No one noticed him at all at the train station, of course; it was too busy that time of night. But it's almost as though the guy were a ghost."

"Sounds like a hook-up gone horribly wrong," Wakaba said.

"A what?"

That was all the invitation she needed. She swiveled in her chair to face them, all smiles at the prospect of getting in on the action of so gruesome a case.

"A hook-up," she said. "It's the big thing among middle school and high school girls these days. Where do you think they get all that spending money? They head into the city in the evening, go to where they know lonely salarymen are going to be hanging out, and get paid a fee for accompanying those men to dinner or karaoke or the pachinko parlor—make them feel real desirable, you know? A lot of times they even perform sexual favors, too. Well, supposedly. It's hard to tell just how often. Girls don't usually brag about that sort of thing when it happens."

"Don't get any funny ideas," Hisoka interjected quickly when he noticed an idea seemed to be forming itself in Tsuzuki's head.

Wakaba's partner Terazuma, who had been eavesdropping over his newspaper, finally put it down, narrowing his eyes at her. "Hold on a second, Kannuki. How do _you_ know so much about this?"

"I have _ears_, Hajime. I'm not _deaf_, you know." She turned back to Hisoka and Tsuzuki. "Like I said, it's all the rage. It's a free handout, if you don't mind pretending to be interested in a complete stranger for a couple of hours, and they get a meal out of it so . . ." She shrugged. "A woman's honor is a small price to pay for a lot of girls in today's consumer culture."

"Wakaba," Tsuzuki said, and his discomfort was quite apparent, "you sound so hardened the way you talk about those sorts of things."

"Well, most of them aren't whoring themselves out or anything. For most there's no sex involved, just upstanding adult men with a healthy school uniform fetish." Thus spake she who almost never wore anything but. "Although, I've never heard of school_boys_ getting in on that sort of thing. I don't know why not, though, come to think of it: There's people with all sorts of perversions these days, that's probably one of the more normal ones."

"So you've got a little psychopath running around with a beef against gay men," Terazuma put in with a little more relish than was necessary. "You guys down there in Kyushu just have all the fun, don't you?"

As seemed to be the desired result, Tsuzuki glared. "'All the fun'? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, nothing. I just think you ought to be especially careful on this one, Tsuzuki." Terazuma snickered.

"You saying you want to switch places with me? How thoughtful of you. Or perhaps we should set you and our perp up on a nice, cozy date—"

"Oh, for goodness sake, would you two let up already?" Wakaba said before the old sarcastic arms race between the two ex-partners could get too out of hand. She snatched Terazuma's newspaper from his fingers and started rolling it up. "I swear, it's like Israel and Palestine with you guys. When are you going to learn to get along?"

"Come on, Kannuki," Terazuma tried, "I'm just poking a little bit of fun."

"It's never fun when the likes of your oversized male egos are involved."

"At least _I_ didn't start it," Tsuzuki muttered—which succeeded in riling the other to the point his chair loudly scraped the floor as he half rose out of it growling, "But you'll _finish_ it," before a stern, matronly look from Wakaba gave him reason to pause.

That was when Tsuzuki noticed his partner had slipped out of the room, leaving his lunch and the open folders at his desk.

-o-

Sitting on the grass, the rough bark of the trunk of an old cherry tree against his back, Hisoka was so lost in thought he didn't suspect his partner's presence until a can of some fruity beverage from a vending machine entered his field of vision. He followed it up to Tsuzuki, who stood beside him, a sympathetic smile on his face. He had certainly improved his concentration in the last few years, hardly ever did he project his feelings anymore as loudly as he once did.

Hisoka took the proffered can. "You know I don't like sweet things." He figured that would be received as the roundabout thanks he intended it to be.

"But I thought you could use a pick-me-up," Tsuzuki said. "Your scars are bothering you again, aren't they? It's been a while—"

"No. It was the bickering, actually." Hisoka sighed as he watched the other's expression shift between understanding and embarrassment: Tsuzuki must have forgotten, as usual, how the tumultuous emotions of his fights with Terazuma weighed on his partner. But Hisoka was in no mood to bother with pretenses of impatience. "Since you mention it, though, I have been thinking about this new case."

"And?"

Hisoka looked up. "I know you're convinced Muraki is the guilty party—I know that a part of you _wants_ him to be the murderer—but don't you think you're oversimplifying a complex issue?"

"How do you mean?"

"I mean, it seems like you don't want to consider putting the blame on anyone else. Like you already know what terrible things he's capable of, so you want him to take the fall for the sins of everyone else." And is that so wrong? he could almost hear Tsuzuki asking in his mind. Far be it for him to actually feel anything remotely resembling pity for the man who made him a shinigami—and put him through hell in the process—but there was something unreasonable about it, something that didn't quite fit that nagged at the more logical part of his mind. That was why he could not help playing the devil's advocate.

"What if," he started again hesitantly. "What if those men were after something from that boy after all—what if they had tried to take advantage of him, to rape him, and that was why they died? I mean, isn't it possible they were killed in self-defense?"

"And therefore they deserved what they got? You're forgetting those pictures of the crime scenes. Those men weren't just killed, Hisoka: They were mutilated. No matter what they might have done, what happened to them happened in cold blood."

The sudden force in Tsuzuki's words sounded almost condemning to Hisoka's ears. He found himself physically shrinking from them, as though they were meant for him. A spark of resentment surfaced for his partner at the thought that Tsuzuki would take their side over his, then quickly dissipated as he realized how quickly the victims had become guilty in his own mind.

Hisoka hugged his knees to his chest, the unopened can hanging from his fingers. "I know."

He felt Tsuzuki's demeanor soften at the tone of his own voice. A sense of shame and pity that threatened to overwhelm Hisoka for a brief moment before he strengthened his mental defenses. "I'm sorry, Hisoka. I wasn't thinking—"

"No, you're absolutely right." Brushing the fallen petals from his shoulders like he were brushing off the unpleasantnesses of his past life—if only it could be so easy—Hisoka stood and resolutely opened the can Tsuzuki had brought him. He paused before taking a sip. "It was silly of me to think this case would have been anything like my own."

He hadn't had the strength to kill his attacker, not at the time and not since. If he had another chance, he still wasn't sure he would have the presence of mind to do it, let alone cut out Muraki's organs. Perhaps there was some comfort to be taken in that thought—it meant he wasn't such a monster as that man—but he was hard-pressed to find it.

As he took a sip of the syrupy drink, Hisoka stared out at the cherry trees in perpetual bloom that surrounded the administrative building, a mirror image of the Diet building in Chijo, the land of the living. Somehow their gnarled and shadowy figures no longer bothered him. He had once thought them so sinister, vaguely malodorous, unable to comprehend the beauty others saw in them. Now the gentle shower of falling petals under their boughs raised no emotions in him whatsoever. They coexisted, like the granite floors and dark wainscoting in Juuohcho's hallways: familiar and indifferent.

-o-

In Kumamoto, the green summer foliage had yet to turn, the leaves of the zelkovas and maples instead soaking up the warmth of the late September sun. The weather was clear, the sky over the city a remarkably clean blue, with only the chill of the wind off of Mount Aso to remind one that autumn was fast approaching.

Still Hisoka crossed his arms tightly across his chest and scrunched his shoulders against a cold that was perhaps more internal than the result of a cool draft as he looked out across a lake in Suizenji Jojuen Park from the Kokindenju-no-ma teahouse where they sat. He over his tea and Tsuzuki over something that looked like a slice of coffee cake; Hisoka knew better than to ask.

"We were pretty fortunate this time around," Tsuzuki was saying around a bite of said cake, "that Tatsumi decided to increase our budget. If he wanted to do something nice for us, though, he could have booked us into a better hotel."

"I don't think he meant us to use it for our enjoyment." Hisoka took a sip of his tea. "I think he wants us to check out the crime scenes for ourselves. The restaurant the second victim was killed at was on the pricey side, and karaoke booths aren't exactly cheap to rent either."

"Fine, spoilsport. But I don't hear you complaining about this place."

"No," Hisoka agreed. "It's very relaxing here." Even if he was not so good at showing his appreciation on his face, unlike his partner, he enjoyed the calm aura of the park, whose artificial hills and patches of woods reminded him of forests farther to the north and traditions and stories of a time long past. It was much more pleasant than the Kumamoto Castle Tsuzuki had insisted on taking him to, but Hisoka had never been one for sightseeing. Still, maybe when this case was over he would drag Tsuzuki along to see the novelist Natsume Soseki's home as compensation.

If, in fact, it proved that simple a case to end.

As though reading his train of thought, it was Tsuzuki who pulled them back to the topic. "Do you think you'll even be able to glean anything from the crime scenes?"

"I don't know," Hisoka admitted. "I'm an empathic, not a psychic or a medium. But I guess it can't hurt to try. I believe Tatsumi had something in mind more along the lines of scoping out the way the establishments are built. Entrances and exits, the level of accessibility to committing a murder, that sort of thing."

"Maybe." A grin slowly spread on Tsuzuki's lips that made Hisoka dread what he was about to say. "Of course, maybe we'd have better luck if one of us went undercover, posing as a high schooler in need of some quick cash perhaps?"

"You cad! You'd sell your own partner out to perverts?" Hisoka furrowed his brows in feigned shock, but at the same time knew Tsuzuki well enough to know he was perfectly serious about the suggestion. "You _are_ the kind of man Terazuma says you are, aren't you?" He pouted. "Besides, hate to burst your bubble but it wouldn't work."

"Yeah? Why's that?"

"Because the person we're after is a high schooler looking for a hook-up. So really, when you think about it, you'd make better bait than I would."

"Nope, no good," Tsuzuki said with a shake of the head. "I'm not his blood type, so he wouldn't want anything to do with me. You, on the other hand . . ."

He had a point there—which was a part of what was bothering Hisoka so much. AB wasn't a common blood type to begin with, so the fact that he and the four victims all shared it was a bit discomforting, even if it was mere coincidence. Still . . . "You can just forget about it, Tsuzuki. I'd do a lot of things if I knew it would help solve a case, but offering myself to strange men on the street is definitely not one of them, I don't care what Wakaba says about propriety—"

"Not even if it was a worst case scenario and we were desperate?"

God, he wouldn't give it up. Despite himself, Hisoka couldn't help a snort of laughter. "Not even if it was a last-ditch effort."

He nearly spit out his tea when Tsuzuki changed tactics: "How about if you were hooking up with me?"

"Now, wait a minute," Hisoka started after he managed to swallow and found his voice, "that's . . . that's . . ."

"Such a brilliant idea you're speechless, I see." Tsuzuki beamed as he raised his own tea cup to his lips, muttering fondly to himself: "'Cad' . . . That's cute. Who talks like that anymore, anyway?"

-o-

It took a concerted effort on Hisoka's part not to show his embarrassment when he and Tsuzuki arrived that evening at the restaurant in which the second victim had been killed. Unlike his partner, who was either completely oblivious or really good at not caring, Hisoka knew exactly how it looked for a man dressed as Tsuzuki was in the attire of an average salaryman to be taking a boy of Hisoka's age and looks out to dinner on a weekday alone. He caught the slight rise of eyebrows when the hostess at the entrance glanced up at them, and knew the thought had crossed her mind as well.

As if, Hisoka thought. If he ever were to enter into an arrangement with that level of delicacy, he would have chosen someone a lot more discrete than Tsuzuki.

"Will it be just the two of you?" the hostess said.

"Yeah." Tsuzuki started. "I mean, not the way you think, of course! Just an ordinary guy taking his little brother out to dinner—"

Hisoka slapped his forehead. So much for playing it cool. "We don't look a thing alike, you moron!" he said through gritted teeth.

"Er, in a manner of speaking," Tsuzuki went on blithely digging himself deeper into the hole. "You heard of that Big Brothers and Big Sisters organization? That's us. It's a really useful program, sort of like tutoring but without the boring math. And it's a special occasion! Yeah. The kid's celebrating his birthday today."

"A-all right," said the hostess embarrassedly. "Right this way please."

As they followed her into the restaurant, Hisoka hissed to his partner: "Big Brothers and Sisters? What the hell is that?"

"It's a real program, I swear! Nothing funny to it."

"Maybe not, but it sounds even fishier than the truth." He willed himself to remain calm among the other diners; Tsuzuki was doing a well-enough job of drawing attention to themselves without his help. "And don't call me kid again or I'll make you eat it."

When the hostess showed them to a vacant table, they thanked her with polite smiles. And while Tsuzuki looked wide-eyed at the menu and muttered something about being starved, Hisoka made an effort to study the layout of the establishment.

It was a traditional-style Japanese restaurant with minimalist decor and intimate booths, separated from one another by low wood partitions and potted plants. The effect was that the perimeters of the interior were somewhat difficult to determine, and the killer must have taken full advantage of this. The faint music and sound of dripping water were soothing—and with good reason, Hisoka deduced after glancing over the prices on the menu. Apparently Tsuzuki had failed to notice them himself, as he was currently vacillating between two of the more expensive dishes on it.

About half the tables were occupied, Hisoka noticed, which was not bad considering it was still early in the evening. He'd thought the news of a murder taking place inside the establishment would keep customers away, but perhaps in thinking so he was underestimating human compassion. Or their morbid curiosity.

They ordered their food and Hisoka excused himself to the restroom. He found it at the end of a hallway around a corner and near the kitchen back-entrance. The sounds of pots and pans clanking together and the sizzling of the grill were extinguished instantly with the closing of the door. Inside, the music that had been faint out in the dining area was all that Hisoka heard. He didn't like that. It dampened his ability to concentrate.

Since there was no one to catch him at it, Hisoka pulled one of the crime scene glossies from his jacket pocket and unfolded it. He checked the first stall, glancing between the two in an attempt to match it to the stall in the photograph. It wasn't the same. He was just starting on the second one when the toilet in the third flushed and a rather rotund man emerged. He shot Hisoka a suspicious look that made the boy shrink from him in momentary embarrassment; but he didn't stop to say anything about Hisoka's strange behavior, just left without washing his hands.

Hisoka let out his breath and relaxed when he had gone. He turned his focus once again on the second toilet stall. There was no doubt about it: This was his murder scene. It seemed so strange, however, when he held up the photograph for comparison, to find no trace of the bloody corpse that had lain slumped against the back wall. The whole place, from the grout down to the chips in the tiles, had been scrubbed immaculately clean. Abnormally clean for a public toilet.

He stepped inside and closed the door behind him, trying to imagine the moment of the crime. There were no holes in the walls, so the killer and victim both must have been inside the stall. It was roomy enough that two people could have fit inside, albeit uncomfortably. It must have been difficult for the attacker to wield a sharp instrument in such close proximity, but on the other hand it would have been next to impossible for the victim to see until it was too late. After the first blow, he wouldn't have had a chance.

Hisoka emerged from the restroom to find Tsuzuki engaged in conversation with their waitress, who had just brought their food. She had a boyish look to her as seemed to be in fashion lately, and between that and Tsuzuki's animated smile—the kind that made it seem like he and the person receiving it were the only ones in the world—Hisoka found himself momentarily and inexplicably jealous. He lingered in the hallway until she had gone.

When he returned to their table, Tsuzuki looked up and said as though nothing had happened, "Good, Hisoka. You're back just in time."

Hisoka sat down and tucked in, saying to his plate, "You and our waitress seemed to be having a grand old time."

Though he didn't look up, he could feel Tsuzuki's perplexed stare on him. Until he got it. "Oh, that," Tsuzuki said easily. "We were just talking about the murder that happened here."

Hisoka's head shot up, his envy forgotten. "You were?"

"M-m. Apparently she and the waiter who found the body were good friends, but he's resigned since then due to the shock. I guess it's to be expected, but it means we won't be able to interview him without some trouble. . . . But she did point me to the table the two had been sitting at—the victim and the high schooler everyone seems to have witnessed, that is. It's that one right over there."

He pointed to a table not far away where a young married couple was sitting with a toddler, oblivious to the history of their seating. The incongruity of the frivolity of their outing struck Hisoka. That and the father reminded him of a mellower Terazuma.

"Apparently the staff is sworn to secrecy where the investigation is concerned," Tsuzuki continued, leaning slightly over the table. "Naturally the owners are concerned it will drive business away if customers find out. She only told me because she thought I was in the same boat as the victim."

"That I had hooked up with you, in other words."

Tsuzuki smiled. "I guess we looked too far apart in age for her to believe we were partners in an investigation." Hisoka groaned and put a hand to his forehead: Oh, Tsuzuki, you didn't . . . "She only thought she should warn me in case you ended up trying to kill me for my money at the end of the night."

If Hisoka was supposed to congratulate him for a job well done, he missed his cue. "Well, did you explain to her she was mistaken?"

Tsuzuki knitted his brows in disappointment.

"Did she at least get a good look at the kid?"

"She wasn't working that night. But she did say her waiter friend told her he was wearing a gray private school uniform and had his hair cut sort of like Hikawa Kiyoshi."

"So do half of young men between fifteen and twenty-five." Hisoka pushed around the food on his plate as he spoke, lost in thought. "That doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know, and besides, it's hearsay. We still don't even know how the boy is involved, unless this friend saw them going into the toilets together."

Tsuzuki shrugged. He said around a bite of food, "Speaking of which, did you learn anything useful in there?"

Hisoka put his chopsticks down on the edge of his plate, finding he didn't have much of an appetite.

"I learned it wouldn't have been impossible to commit the murder in the toilet and escape undetected, if that's what you mean. I noticed a door back there by the telephone and kitchen rear-entrance. It probably leads to a delivery alley. The killer and the boy could have left through there, if they're not in fact the same person, which would explain why no one saw them leave."

He shrugged. "If you mean, did I feel anything, then the answer is no. Every centimeter of that stall was scrubbed clean. If there was even anything I could glean some trace of emotion from to begin with, it's long gone by now."

They diligently ate their meals—or tried to, in Hisoka's case—and Hisoka managed to limit Tsuzuki to one beer, using the excuse that Tatsumi was spending enough money on them this time around without his partner wasting it on getting smashed on the job. The bill was high enough as it was. Then they departed for the nearest of the two karaoke houses on the list, the scene of the fourth murder.

As they walked the shopping arcades of Shimotori and its side streets at night, Hisoka felt vaguely overwhelmed by the press of people, who had brought with them all the repressed emotions of their day to be released under the cool night air of the early autumn and the kaleidoscope of lit and animated signs. Every sound—the man of questionable occupation talking loudly on his cellphone, the cry of an infant up way past its bedtime, the harsh laughter of high school girls in baggy white socks—made his ears hurt and warped his perspective of the place, making it difficult to gain a true sense of direction.

Hisoka couldn't be sure if that was why with each block the feeling grew stronger and stronger in the back of his mind that he and Tsuzuki's progress was being followed by hidden, omniscient eyes. It was probably nothing, he told himself, and decided not to alarm Tsuzuki.

They found the karaoke house nearly empty and had no trouble booking a room for an hour. Tsuzuki asked for the room number the murder had taken place in, pretending it was his usual and feigning surprise when the host told him why it was closed. As they walked by on the way to the room they received in its stead, they noted the yellow crime scene tape that still decorated the thick door, as though serving as warning to those, like they were pretending to be, who came to the establishment with illicit purpose, believing themselves safe.

Somehow Hisoka managed to waste an hour listening to Tsuzuki pretend he could sing.

They had better luck on Nishi-Ginza Street at the next one, where the hostess cheerfully told them that they were in luck: People from all over, sometimes groups of coworkers even, had taken to asking for that room specifically ever since the murder was reported a few weeks ago, and now it was a rare occurrence when it wasn't booked. By now it didn't surprise the shinigami that there were so many besides themselves who made their success off the deaths of others.

As with the restaurant toilet, however, there was no sign that a murder had ever taken place inside the room. "The carpet and upholstery is all new," Hisoka said with a sigh. "In fact, I don't think this is even the original sofa. I expected this. This room isn't going to tell me anything."

An instrumental version of some old American standard Tsuzuki had selected was playing loudly in the room, forcing the two of them to yell over it, but they had little to fear of being overheard in a place like that. "So we're no better off then when we started," Tsuzuki said.

"Not necessarily. The more places we look at, the more I'm convinced the way those men were killed was part of a riddle."

"A riddle?"

"The killer obviously wants to get caught—it's all part of his MO—but he can't get caught through a _lack_ of incriminating evidence, so he leaves a trail of breadcrumbs instead—"

"Counting on someone to put the loaf back together again?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes." Hisoka bit his lip. "I just wish I could figure the damn thing out."

"I hate to say it," Tsuzuki said after a minute, "but if we had another victim—"

"Famous last words," Hisoka said, shaking his head in disapproval.

"I know, I know. And I would never wish for someone else to be butchered in such a way. But you have to wonder, is the next time going to be the time he gets careless and leaves us something that can blow this whole case wide open?"

Hisoka wouldn't admit it out loud, but he did wonder that very same thing, as they examined the train station where the most gruesomely mutilated corpse had been found, all but right in the open. He hadn't wanted to admit, as Tsuzuki had, to having the strong feeling that their old nemesis Muraki might be responsible, just in case it clouded their ability to solve the case. But he now realized that what he had said to Tsuzuki earlier as a chastisement applied to himself as well: With every stop he wanted less and less to believe the world could be filled with any number of people just as sick as that man was.

-o-

"Warm . . . warmer . . ."

His last conversation with Muraki was still fresh in his mind. The ones they were waiting for—the servants of the land of the dead, Muraki had called them with a grin that was at once fond and derisive—were on their trail. However, they were looking in all the wrong places. "Then I'll point them in the right direction," Fujisawa had said, and he knew precisely how he would do it.

The afternoon light was waning now that the sun had slipped below the tops of the buildings. The rotation of the rear bicycle wheel whose axle he stood on, the patting sound as it rolled over seams in the pavement, set a steady rhythm for his whispered litany as they wove through pedestrians and parked cars and delivery vans on the side of the street: "Colder . . . colder . . . ice cold. . . ."

"What's that?" Hiragawa called back over his shoulder.

"Nothing. . . . Hey, keep your eyes on the road."

Fujisawa smiled as the boy in front of him started and jerked the bike sideways to avoid hitting the curb of the sidewalk. One of his hands slipped from Hiragawa's shoulder to grab the seat even though he had not felt himself in the least bit of danger of falling. And as he let his thumb linger against Hiragawa's left buttock, he felt the boy's shoulders stiffen under his other hand. He pretended not to notice, however, and kept a sharp lookout for the chosen place, tugging Hiragawa's sleeve jacket when they came to it like he might a horse's reigns. "Turn here."

Hiragawa complied without a word, sliding the bike into the alley and slowing to a stop. Fujisawa stepped nimbly off the back and dug his hands in his pockets, but Hiragawa hesitated. "This is what you wanted to show me? There's nothing here."

"It's a little further in." But his companion did not seem so sure. Fujisawa frowned. "Come on. It wouldn't be worth going if just anyone could find it, would it? Leave the bike here and follow me."

He didn't give Hiragawa the chance to hesitate, but walked further into the dimly lit alley so that the boy, a year his junior, would have no choice but to follow.

Which he did, after reluctantly setting the foot brake and leaning his bicycle against the wall.

They walked together side by side in their matching uniforms, and if anyone had seen them enter the alleyway, they would not have found anything to be suspicious of about the activities of two boys from such an upstanding private academy as theirs. That game was all too familiar to Fujisawa, who had at one time been such a champion at it, he'd even had the staff at his old school under his thumb. Not so with Hiragawa, a second-year high schooler who—Fujisawa was quickly beginning to realize—pretended to an air of delinquency that would be unrecognizable to any boy his age who struggled to survive in public school outside of his ivory tower. If not for his particular weakness Fujisawa might never have convinced him to come so far.

They turned a corner, and when they came to the chain-link fence at the end of a cul-de-sac invisible from the main road, Hiragawa finally stopped and refused to go any farther. "Just where are we going?"

Fujisawa grinned a feral grin. "Right here."

"But . . . there's nothing here."

"That all depends on what you make of it."

"I-I don't do drugs," the boy stammered, and Fujisawa couldn't help but chuckle at his naivety.

He leaned nonchalantly against a wall. "_Naa_, Hiragawa . . . Are you familiar with the story of Snow White?"

Hiragawa, expecting anything more sinister than that, was at a loss. "Not really."

"Well, it's a European folktale, so I guess I shouldn't have expected you to. But the gist of it is, there was an evil queen who was so jealous of Snow White's beauty that she hired a hunter to track down Snow White and kill her. As proof of her death, he was supposed to bring back Snow White's heart in a box. But when the hunter found Snow White, he took such pity on her that he spared her life and took a pig's heart back to the queen instead."

When he said nothing else, Hiragawa prompted, "Yeah? And then what happened?"

Fujisawa waved it off. "The rest isn't really important." He stepped away from the wall and over to Hiragawa. He moved so close so quick that his underclassman blushed hard and fought the involuntary urge to step back. "Fu-Fujisawa-sempai . . ."

"I told you I was going to show you something amazing, didn't I?"

"What?" said Hiragawa, though he looked less sure of that assertion moment by moment. "What is it?"

But Fujisawa did not answer, only tilted his head and gazed at his companion's face. He lowered his voice to a cool murmur. "You really are pretty, Hiragawa."

He could sense the boy's tensing, like a little bird prepared to take flight. He solved that in one swift move by pressing his mouth hard to Hiragawa's. The boy gave a muffled sound of surprise, and his blood vessels opened and flushed his skin with heat, his breath coming warm and shallow against Fujisawa's cheek. Alone in the narrow alleyway, Fujisawa had him backed against the chain-link fence in a matter of seconds. It rattled under their weight, and Fujisawa couldn't help what that sound did to him, rubbing his groin against the other boy's as casually as though by accident before finally letting him go.

"W-what are you doing?" Hiragawa breathed when he could. "That's . . . that's disgusting."

The corner of Fujisawa's lips turned up in a grin as he glanced down at the cross embroidered on the breasts of their jackets, then further down still to the bulge in the front of Hiragawa's trousers. "Yeah, I can see that."

Hiragawa followed his line of sight and blushed furiously, and Fujisawa laughed. He turned his head. "The Bible says God hates homosexuals."

"If he did, then why would he give us these feelings?"

Hiragawa looked up at him and Fujisawa knew he had struck a cord. As soon as the words left his mouth, he swore he must have heard them somewhere before, but just where was a blank. In any case, he couldn't believe that bullshit excuse actually got a reaction. "That is," he backpedaled carefully, "if everything does, in fact, come from God. You don't believe in the Devil, do you, Hiragawa?"

"N-no . . . But . . ." Hiragawa's protests cut off in a gasp when Fujisawa's hand cupped his crotch, his fingers working his fly as though they had done it a million times before.

"Hiragawa," he crooned as he pushed the other's trousers down his thighs and sank to his knees. "I promised you I would show you something amazing."

Fujisawa gently nudged Hiragawa's knees apart, sliding his lips and then his tongue up the inside of his thigh until he felt the hard pulse of the femoral artery, beating warm against his skin. The other boy's breathing quickened, his fingers entangling themselves in Fujisawa's hair with an urgency that was certainly at odds with the sentiments the boy had voiced only a moment ago. Fujisawa could not believe how easy this was.

-o-

Hiragawa could hardly believe how easily it was happening to him. He wasn't sure how his upperclassman, new to the school, had known his weakness intuitively, or how he had allowed himself to give into his sinful thoughts so readily. But once started down that path he could not stop himself, nor did he want to. Fujisawa seemed to know precisely how to use his mouth to drive him mad, and undo everything Hiragawa had become so good at suppressing. He was already painfully hard beneath his briefs. Amazing was an understatement, and Fujisawa was only getting started.

His eyes closed to hide both his shame and his excitement, Hiragawa was not prepared for the piercing pain that tore through the inside of his thigh and ricocheted up and down his body. He cried out in a spasm of pure agony, instinctively trying to get away from the source of it. But Fujisawa held him right where he was, pinning his hips against the chain-link with a vice grip.

Fujisawa's mouth was still on him: Hiragawa could feel him sucking like a lamprey at the spot where he had felt that awful, searing pain. "What the f—" he started, but the words caught in his throat. That was when he looked down and saw the blood. His own blood, gushing dark and thick down his leg and staining his trousers and his briefs.

Fujisawa stared up at him, his own uniform and chin running red. He had an evil look in his eyes like Hiragawa had never seen. The look of the Devil. And suddenly Hiragawa did believe. He felt weak, like a balloon that had sprung a leak. Something was wrong. Gravely wrong. Blood should not have been coming out of him so _fast_.

None of this should have happened so fast.

"What are you doing?" he managed to whimper. It had to be some sort of sick joke, an illusion. "_Why is it coming out like that?_"

"Quit your squirming," Fujisawa told him instead, his sing-song tone of voice eerily incongruous with the look of hungry concentration on his face. "I wouldn't try to run if I were you. Well, heh, I probably would, but you'd never make it to the street anyway. You'll just make more trouble for yourself if you continue to fight."

As much as he told himself it couldn't be true, it wasn't happening, Hiragawa knew he was right. He felt too weak, too nauseous to move much at all. When he tried he only felt like he was leaking blood faster. The chain link rattled violently in response to his desperate but feeble attempts to keep himself upright. Slowly, as though in a dream, he felt himself sinking to the concrete. He tried to scream but found himself unable, too stunned to make a sound by the queer feeling in his leg and the sight of Fujisawa drinking down all that blood and the weird cohabitation of numbness and shooting pain that made him so dizzy. How could this be happening to him?

Lightheaded, short of breath, Hiragawa felt his own body slump weakly against the fence. His fingers continued to grab feebly at his attacker's hair, while an abject fear grabbed him. "Need to go . . . hospital," he choked out, but Fujisawa ignored him. His Adam's apple bobbed and his dark lashes fluttered as he drank in some disturbing parody of an orgasm, oblivious to Hiragawa's panic. It made him want to cry. "Please. Stop. . . . I don't want to die."

He just wanted to wake up from this nightmare. His eyelids felt so heavy. . . . In the back of his mind Hiragawa had known it was a bad idea to come this far. He had felt it. There had been something unsettling in his upperclassman's look when he asked Hiragawa out after school—something monstrous.

-o-

The Shimotori shopping arcade looked completely different in the daylight, Hisoka thought. When they came down here the night before, he had been disoriented by the lights and the crowd of people. Now, between school letting out and the evening dinner rush, this busiest street in Kumamoto looked comparatively sparse, its maze of side streets and department stores smaller, closer. It was a welcome change, but he couldn't say it gave him a new perspective. Rather, instead of the sensory overload of last night's adventure, these well-lit storefronts told him nothing.

"We're just wasting time here," he told his partner when they met up outside the silver behemoth that was the Parco building at the arcade's entrance.

Apparently Tsuzuki's scoping out of Kamitori was not a complete loss as the small bags of souvenirs in his hand testified. Where he got the money to treat every case like a holiday was beyond Hisoka, but he swallowed his criticism and preceded Tsuzuki into the shopping arcade.

"It sure seems that way, doesn't it," Tsuzuki said as he followed him. "But we don't have much else to go on. Even the police reports—"

"Are useless as long as we don't have access to the actual evidence. We have to wait for them to figure something out before we learn anything new." Hisoka sighed. "I hate being a step behind them."

"It doesn't have to be that way."

Hisoka looked back over his shoulder. "What do you mean?"

Tsuzuki chose not to answer. "Come on. Why don't you let me buy you a coffee. I saw a coffee shop on the corner of Sannenzakadori when we came past here last night. It'll give us a chance to get off our feet and collect our thoughts."

Hisoka shot his partner a skeptical look at his sudden cheerfulness. Doubtless he would be the one buying the drinks, once Tsuzuki had a chance to look into his wallet. He grumbled, "Right. You just want to brag about what you bou—"

Before he could finish that thought, something prickled his nerves. Hisoka looked in the direction he thought the feeling had come from, but there was nothing there but a group of schoolgirls waiting outside Tower Records and some businessmen on their cell phones. "Tsuzuki," he began again in a lower voice, "while we were out last night, I had a weird feeling like we were being followed."

"Followed?" As expected, Tsuzuki abruptly looked around himself. He was so obvious, Hisoka blushed in embarrassment. "You mean all around downtown? Why didn't you say anything?"

"Idiot . . . Because I knew you'd overreact—just like you're doing now!" Sighing, he grabbed Tsuzuki's sleeve and pulled him along in the opposite direction down the street, glancing once again out of the corner of his eye for safe measure. "I didn't want you to give us away."

Tsuzuki lowered his voice. "Do you think it was Muraki?"

"I don't know." Hisoka bit his lip in thought. "Maybe."

"And maybe you're just being paranoid. If it were Muraki, don't you think we'd know? I like to think I would at least have felt something."

"You were enjoying yourself too much."

Hisoka didn't mean it as a chastisement, but he had nothing to fear about being misinterpreted. Tsuzuki smiled fondly as though to say, guilty as charged. He held the door open for his partner, and they fell silent when they entered the coffee shop and got into line.

It would have been the ideal place to collect their thoughts, as Tsuzuki had suggested, and formulate some sort of strategy as to what to do next. But for some reason, it seemed to Hisoka they had left the case outside the door like a dog they would reclaim on the way out. They talked of trivial things instead—or rather, Tsuzuki talked and Hisoka listened—and when they left it seemed they were no closer to solving their investigation, but at least had a clear mind with which to approach it.

It was already close to five in the afternoon and they thought of grabbing an early dinner after a little more people-watching before heading back to the hotel. Neither one seemed particularly eager to run again through the stacks of files that awaited them there. "I want to mail the Gushoushin about livers and folklore," Hisoka said. "They must have come across something in their filing."

"You're still thinking it's a riddle?"

Hisoka's tilt of the head was neither affirmative nor negative. "In medieval Europe, they believed a person's personality was determined by humours produced by internal organs. Like, if a person was producing too much bile he was more likely to be short-tempered or lusty, or something like that. I don't remember exactly."

"I see." Tsuzuki nodded. "So the victims' blood type might be significant for the same reasons."

"On the other hand, there could be a very practical reason for that. . . . I do seem to recall something similar about demons in Buddhist legends, too—something about patron spirits that control certain organs, even to the point of stealing them from those who break the commandments. And of course, there are the kappa: They're said to pull out people's livers and eat them."

"They wouldn't be interested in hearts, though." Tsuzuki shivered and made a sound of disgust. "I hate to think someone—or something, for that matter—might actually be eating those men's livers."

"It is pretty far-fetched, isn't it? Still, they do say that truth is stranger—"

They had hardly gone a block down Sannenzakadori when he was cut off by a woman's scream. The shinigami exchanged glances before taking off at a run in the direction it had come from. Other shoppers stopped and turned their heads at the sound, but most shrugged when they saw nothing amiss on their street and continued what they were doing. Seeing that couldn't but raise Hisoka's ire, but he had no time to dwell on unnecessary emotions. If the scream was an indication of something urgent, the fewer passers-by came to gawk and get in his way the better.

He flew around a corner, Tsuzuki close on his heels, and found to his dismay that a small crowd was already starting to gather at the entrance of an alleyway. He heard Tsuzuki swear under his breath, but whether at that he did not know. Perhaps he too was recalling what he had said just the night before, about how he wished the killer would give them something else to go by. Hisoka's reply of "famous last words" now seemed like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

They slipped through the gathering throng with only minor shoving, dashing into the narrow alleyway where a young woman wearing the uniform of the convenience store it bordered stood staring around the corner in shock, speechless. No doubt she was the one who had raised the alarm.

The shinigami peered into the dim passageway behind the store. A high chain-link fence cut the alley in half, preventing any further access. And in front of it, at its foot, slouched a teenage boy no older than Hisoka, his trousers pooled around his shins, his legs streaked with blood, his eyes staring out at them, lifeless.

Tsuzuki made to go to the boy's side and the young woman started. She must have been too stunned to notice them coming up behind her, Hisoka thought as he laid a hand gently on her shoulder. Her terror bit him like a static shock before he could raise a defense. "Call the police," he told her.

She was near tears. "What about an ambulance?"

From his crouch beside the boy's body, Tsuzuki looked back at them. He need not have said a word for them to understand. The young woman covered her mouth and ran back out toward the street, nearly bowling over a coworker in the process. "Hey, Eiri, what—" He turned to Hisoka. "What's going on?"

"A boy's been murdered."

"_What?_" The convenience store clerk furrowed his brows in disbelief. Some of those gathered in the street behind him murmured among themselves at the news.

Hisoka felt himself losing patience. "Just keep everyone out of the alley until the police arrive! We need to preserve the crime scene."

He turned back to the victim, confident in that one fact: He and Tsuzuki would be allowed the first examination. He would have called it a lucky break, if their luck hadn't come at the price of another person's life. "What happened?" he asked Tsuzuki. "Botched mugging?" He grimaced at the boy's half-dressed state. Maybe it was his imagination, but he swore he caught the smell of sweat mixed in with the strong, coppery tang of blood, and it wasn't that warm a day. "Attempted rape?"

"Hard to say." Tsuzuki stood with a sigh, his expression full of pity as he looked down on the dead boy. "Looks like his femoral artery was severed, in any case. He bled out, poor bastard. He's white as a sheet."

"Bled out?" Hisoka looked around. "Then where's all the blood?"

The boy's clothes were soaked in it, the inside of his left leg nearly covered, but the amount of blood on his person and on the concrete was inconsistent with such a verdict. The other crime scenes had been bloodier than this, and it hadn't been exsanguination that killed them. "Good question," Tsuzuki said.

Then he started. "Hello. What's this?"

He bent down and reached for the breast pocket of the boy's uniform jacket. As he did so, Hisoka glanced at the crest embroidered on it. The uniform was gray, the school's crest sporting a cross. It wasn't just any private school the boy belonged to, but a Catholic one. It fit what the witnesses had described of the mystery boy's attire. "This is the same uniform . . ."

"But not our killer," Tsuzuki said. "Unless he offed himself." And he held up the object he had retrieved from the breast pocket for them both to see. It was a gold foil cake doily, folded in quarters.

"That's—!"

"The calling card you were talking about." Despite the gruesome nature of the scene before them, Tsuzuki allowed himself a wry grin. "The kid may have his liver, for whatever reason, but this is definitely the work of the same twisted individual."

"Or individuals." Tsuzuki shot him a questioning look, until Hisoka nodded at the doily. "Open it up."

He dared not say so out loud, lest giving voice to his suspicions make them true; but when Tsuzuki unfolded the doily, there was in fact a message written on the back side, in thick black brush strokes against the stark white paper. "'To the fairest one of all,'" Tsuzuki read aloud. There was no question in Hisoka's mind after that: This was no random attack. This body was meant specifically for them to find. "If you have any more doubts about Muraki's involvement—"

"Don't worry. I don't anymore."

Folding the doily back up and pocketing it, Tsuzuki kneeled down once again and started to pat down the body. "Tsuzuki, what are you doing?" Hisoka hissed. He glanced quickly over his shoulder, praying no one could see his partner manhandling the evidence.

"Trust me," Tsuzuki reassured him as he rifled among the boy's bloodstained clothes. He had to twist the boy's legs a bit to get at the underside of his trousers, and fortunately his limbs were still pliant. And warm, for that matter. The boy hadn't been dead long. And to think while he lay dying, the two of them were enjoying a coffee break just blocks away. . . .

Tsuzuki checked the right back pocket, and his fingers found the bulge they were looking for. "Bingo," he grunted as he pulled out the boy's wallet. There was still a fair amount of cash inside. Large bills. Though he had little doubt about the motive, one thing was for sure, the killer wasn't interested in his money. He glanced at the boy's ID, noting the name and address, date of birth, blood type. AB. No surprise there. He pulled out a credit card; there were receipts folded up and tucked in behind it. "Thank God for rich kids and their plastic," he muttered as he pilfered it and a game center card and slipped them into the pocket of his own jacket.

Hisoka clasped his hand over the wallet when he saw that. "You can't take those!" he said. "That's evidence."

"Yes, exactly. Evidence we'd never get if we waited for the cops to show up and process everything. We've got nothing to work with, Hisoka, you said it yourself," he said to his partner's uncertain expression. "I can pull his credit history up with this, see if he's made any suspicious purchases in the last few days. It's a long shot, I know, but maybe it'll lead us somewhere." Tsuzuki forced a laugh. "And it's a hell of a lot better than nothing."

"Point taken," Hisoka acquiesced as he glanced back at the boy. The desperation in the position of the boy's body disturbed him, however, and he closed his eyes. He couldn't shake the feeling that this was their fault. It was because of them that this boy and the rest of those men had to die—to prove a point to them. To the fairest one of all.

_Tsuzuki_. . . .

If Muraki was involved, Hisoka hoped he would have a chance to kill him himself.

When he opened his eyes again they fell on the school's crest, a white cross overlying a navy blue heart, and suddenly the pieces all fell into place. The gold cake doilies, the position of the victims' hearts, the riddle that had nagged at him, its answer seeming always just out of reach—now he kicked himself for not thinking of it sooner. How clever, how obvious now that he saw it—and how cruel. Why couldn't I have seen it before? Before someone else had to lose his life?

"Tsuzuki," he said slowly as he stared at the unfortunate corpse, "is there anything in that wallet that says where this boy attended class?"

Tsuzuki opened it again, glancing at the ID and looking through the neat rows of cards until he found what would confirm what Hisoka already knew. "Yeah. The Sacred Heart private academy. Why?"

"Because I think it's time I went back to school."


	3. Trail of breadcrumbs

Detective Imai arrived to the familiar scene of uniformed police officers keeping concerned citizens at bay under the flashing lights of emergency vehicles. It was beginning to get dark. A pair of officers was carrying floodlights into the dim alley for when it did, trailing cords behind them that, like a path of breadcrumbs, would lead right back to the victim.

Imai slammed the car door closed as his partner Asai climbed out of the driver's seat, and proceeded over to the barrier, where he flashed an officer his badge. At a nod, the two headed back into the narrow alley, where the medical examiner awaited them, crouched beside the corpse of a teenage boy.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," Imai told him shortly. "What have we got here?"

In response, the ME held up a plastic evidence bag. Inside was a wallet open to the dead boy's ID with its photograph of the victim smiling carelessly, unaware anything like this would befall him before the end of the first school term.

"Possible homicide," said the ME, "the victim a young male, age sixteen, attends school at a private Catholic academy judging by his uniform. Liver temp puts the time of death at around five o'clock this afternoon. The cause of death, exsanguination from the femoral artery."

"At least this vic still has a liver to take the temperature of," Imai sighed to his partner.

"If he died of exsanguination," Asai said, "where are we supposing all the blood went?"

"You would expect there to be more, wouldn't you?" said the ME with a wry smile. "Well, detectives, it's very possible you may be looking for a different crime scene altogether. This might be no more than a body dump. Someone backs their van up into the delivery alley and no one thinks twice. At least, I like to think it was something as logical as that."

He seemed to be holding something back, which prompted Asai to ask, as Imai bent down for a closer examination of the body, "Why? What would you consider _il_logical?"

The other hesitated. "Well . . . it's not so much illogical as implausible. And I can't say anything for sure until I've had time to examine the body more thoroughly in autopsy, but the puncture wounds on the inner thigh were not inflicted by any of the instruments you would usually suspect. Knives, swords, scissors—even a ballpoint pen could do the job if you hit the artery at the right spot. But judging by this boy's wounds . . . I don't think he was stabbed with anything."

As the ME spoke, Imai—having snapped on a pair of surgical gloves—turned the boy's leg himself so that he might see the point of entry himself—or exit, as the case here seemed to be. The smell and sight of caked blood he was used to, but the half-clothed condition of the body made him uncomfortable and even faintly nauseous as it was, and he very much disliked having to spread the victim's legs to see the mortal wound.

"The tissue in this case," the ME continued, gesturing with the butt end of his pen for Imai's benefit, "was not so much punctured as torn, and the sort of oval pattern here seems to suggest by teeth."

The two detectives started at that. "Teeth? You mean he got bit—like by a dog?"

"It would have to be a fairly small dog—"

"But a small dog could do it."

The ME shrugged and reluctantly nodded. "It's possible he was randomly attacked elsewhere—by someone's pet perhaps—and was dumped here to cover it up. I'll be able to get a better idea of what kind of animal we're looking at once I get the body to the morgue. But I mean it, detectives, there's something about this case that just doesn't add up. Like why his trousers would have been removed _before_ he was bitten, and what kind of dog would know just where to deal a fatal bite, without leaving any other marks on him. . . ."

The ME trailed off and shrugged again, and, at Imai's nod, went back to processing the scene. Imai stood and stepped away from the corpse, sweeping the folds of his jacket aside to place his hands on his hips as he went to join his partner. Together they moved back toward the turn in the alley, and Imai said in a low voice as his partner jotted down a few notes: "You don't believe this random-attack, body-dump theory either, do you?"

"Why do you say that?"

"I noticed the bicycle leaning against the wall when we came back here," Imai said with a nod toward the object in question, standing unnoticed by the brick wall like a silent observer to their investigation—like a lost dog looking for its owner. "The foot brake was down, and my gut tells me if that's the kid's, he was planning on coming back to it. In other words, he came back here willingly."

"_If_ it belonged to the kid." Asai nodded to himself. "Right. I'll get someone on it to process the bike for prints." Together they looked out toward the street, where two employees of the adjacent convenience store were talking to one of the female officers, the young man standing, the girl sitting, obviously shaken. "Who wants to take the witnesses?" Asai said with a sigh that clearly told he didn't.

"I'll do it," Imai said, and reached for the badge on his belt.

It wasn't there. He started, and put his free hand on his partner's arm. "My badge is gone," he muttered.

"What do you mean, gone?"

"It's not on me." Imai checked his other side, and finding nothing there patted down the pockets of his coat. He didn't feel it anywhere. "Shit . . . I think I must have dropped it."

"Maybe you left it in the car," Asai suggested.

"No. I'm sure I had it with me when we came back here." Imai looked back the way they had come, into the dark that even the floodlights could not completely lift where the dead boy sat slouched against the chain-link. He must have dropped it back there somewhere, he told himself, where he really didn't want to go back and look for it. He'd seen corpses plenty of times before, but there was something about this one he couldn't quite put his finger on that recalled certain horror flicks.

"It'll turn up somewhere," Asai said as he turned to attend to the witnesses. He patted Imai on the shoulder reassuringly, but Imai could never tell by his perpetually dry manner if Asai actually suspected his partner had made it all up to get out of conducting interviews.

Imai wanted to assure him it wasn't like that, but something made him stop. Some queer feeling all of a sudden like something was brushing by him. He turned to see what it was, but saw nothing but the back wall of the narrow alley.

Yet for some reason he could not explain, it no longer felt to him like he and Asai and the ME had been alone with the corpse.

-o-

"Hey, Terazuma, you free?"

The man in question looked up from the obituaries of that morning's paper and right into the purple eyes of his arch-nemesis, and former partner, Tsuzuki Asato. After all that had happened over the last few years, there was still enough bad blood between them for Terazuma to growl slightly around the coffee swizzle stick hanging from his lips. "Do I look free?"

"Yup." Tsuzuki grabbed the paper from his hands and folded it up. "You do."

The other slowly, mentally started counting backwards from ten to keep the black lion inside him at bay. It didn't take much more than an elevated heart rate before he began to feel the parasitic god pushing at him, especially where Tsuzuki was concerned. "Tsuzuki," he said slowly, "it's eight in the morning. What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing. I just wanted to ask you a favor. I figured since you and Wakaba just wrapped up a case you might be able to help me with my own investigation for an hour or two. It really won't take too long."

"Why you asking me, Tsuzuki? Did the kid dump you or something?" Terazuma smirked. "Would be about time. He must be more messed up than I thought to have the patience to stay with you this long."

Naturally, he didn't think until after the old dig was already out of his mouth that maybe it wasn't the best thing to say. Tsuzuki's past, or what little was known of it, was not a complete mystery to him—in fact Terazuma was convinced that was a large part of what had pushed him away when they worked the beat together—and it wasn't like him to go dredging it up for sport.

Therefore he was relieved when Tsuzuki more or less ignored his snarkiness. His old ex-partner sure was in high spirits this morning to not only come in at a decent time, but completely disregard Terazuma's baiting on top of it.

"Hisoka is currently attending his first day of classes at the Sacred Heart private academy in Kumamoto," he said in a proud tone of voice, as though it were his own kid he was talking about. "It wouldn't be very conductive to our investigation there if he skipped his first day."

"You left him to check out the school on his own?" said Terazuma. Then he shrugged. "Well, you never were one to go by the book." He snatched his newspaper back and opened it to a random page, hoping Tsuzuki would see he wanted to be left alone. But he knew it was all in vain.

"In any case," Tsuzuki continued, "it's not as though I could blend in there myself, and no one would believe us if Hisoka and I posed as detectives looking to interview eyewitnesses to a crime. . . ."

Tsuzuki trailed off and let the implication sink in.

It didn't take long. Terazuma's pointed ears perked up. "Detectives, you say."

Tsuzuki smiled. "It's been a long time, Terazuma. You still have your badge?"

"I've . . . got it put away somewhere."

"Yeah? Like in your desk drawer, where it can be right next to you and the nicotine gum at all times?"

God, it had been a while—too long, to tell the truth, Terazuma realized as he felt the old excitement of the hunt rushing through his bloodstream. There was just one little problem. "What about you? Or are you expecting me to go in alone?"

"I swiped a badge off an officer at the scene," Tsuzuki said, pointing his thumb over his shoulder. "Watari's making me up a knockoff as we speak."

"You clever dog," Terazuma chuckled. "You know, I respect your ingenuity, but interfering with an active investigation? Gee, I don't know if I can condone that kind of behavior, as a veteran of the force myself. . . ."

"I plan on returning it as soon as we're done."

Terazuma glanced at him over the top of his paper and plucked the swizzle stick out of his mouth.

"I swear! Come on, Hajime," Tsuzuki whined, clapping his hands together, exactly how he knew Terazuma most detested him to. Because it wasn't as though Tsuzuki actually meant it. The hairs prickled on the back of Terazuma's neck. "Don't grump out on me on this, please. It'll be just like old times, and it's not like you have anything better to do. I'll even take you out to Mr. Donut afterward—"

"All right, fine! I'll play gumshoe with you, Tsuzuki, just shut up! Jeezus . . ." Terazuma said, slamming his newspaper down on his desk. Despite his manner, however, he really was eager to accept. "Where are we going, anyway?"

Tsuzuki grinned. "I've got a list of places in Kumamoto. Hisoka and I wrote it up last night at the hotel after we pulled the victim's credit card purchases. He made a couple the day he died and I need to find out if anyone remembers him, whether he was with anyone, that sort of thing."

"Great. That's a start." Terazuma stood and pulled on his jacket. His excitement must have been obvious, but he would make an exception this time about hiding it from Tsuzuki. "I just need to run it by Konoe's office first, let him know I'm goin' out for a while—"

"The chief's back?" Tsuzuki lit up.

"Er, no. Tatsumi's still filling in for him. I think he's being groomed to take over, or something. It'd be about—"

Terazuma stopped in his tracks and swore quite lengthily.

"What?" Tsuzuki asked him.

"I can't go out like this."

Tsuzuki just stared at him. He could be so dense sometimes. Or all the time. Terazuma slapped his forehead. "My face, you idiot! I can't pass as a serious detective looking like this—a _living, human_ detective. People are going to notice something's not right here, and when they do our cover is blown."

"Oh, I don't know if they'll notice—"

"They'll notice, all right!" Terazuma sighed. "I'm sorry, Tsuzuki. It was a noble idea, but I don't think my going with you is gonna work."

-o-

A few hours later saw them standing outside the bright orange building of the Taito Game Park in downtown Kumamoto.

Terazuma heaved a great sigh and turned to his new partner, one Detective Imai of the Kumamoto Police Department. "How do I look?"

Wakaba had worked her magic on him, and now the black stripes under his eyes that Kokushungei's possession had saddled him with were hardly visible under a thick layer of concealer she had applied. To Tsuzuki's close inspection, they looked like no more than faint scars or deep wrinkles, and with any luck the game center employees wouldn't be bothered to look so closely under the dim lighting inside.

With any luck, they wouldn't look too closely at his old ID either. The old Terazuma was not as sharp-looking as the one of the present. But it would do. "You look human," Tsuzuki told him.

"I do? What about my ears? Are my ears covered?" He smoothed down the hair over them and Tsuzuki had to smile. Under any other circumstances, Terazuma wouldn't be caught dead preening himself in public like a cat. "Yeah, they're fine. Stop fussing. I wouldn't recommend smiling too widely, though."

"Okay. Good advice," Terazuma muttered to himself, and took a deep breath, mentally prepping himself for the part he was to play the moment he stepped inside. "You got the photo?" he asked.

Tsuzuki handed it to him and Terazuma slipped it into his coat pocket.

"All right. Let's do this thing."

They stepped into a cacophony of flashing lights and obnoxious sound effects and music, blasted at volumes that hardly allowed one to hear himself think. The game center had just opened for the day, but though school was still in session, already there were young people on the machines, interspersed with the mothers with young children taking advantage of the vacantness and young salarymen on early lunch breaks. The two shinigami headed straight for the front desk, where a young man with dyed brown hair was talking to one of his coworkers.

He ended the conversation when he saw them approach.

Terazuma didn't even give him a chance to start with the proscribed spiel. He whipped out his badge, and Tsuzuki hurried to do the same. "I'm Detective Terazuma with the Kumamoto Police Department," he said in the practiced way of a character on a cop drama, "and this is my partner, Detective Imai."

Tsuzuki nodded.

The young man raised his eyebrows as he glanced at their badges, pretending to be impressed. "What can I do for you, officers?"

Terazuma didn't miss a beat. "We were wondering if you'd seen this boy." He withdrew the photograph from his coat pocket and slid it across the counter that separated them. It was a photograph of Hiragawa retrieved from the Judgment Bureau's computers and obtained at the deceased boy's trial, but the game center employee did not have to know that. "According to his bank records," Terazuma continued, "he made a charge here yesterday at three-twelve in the afternoon."

The kid behind the counter slowly shook his head and pushed the photograph back. "I don't recognize him. I wasn't working yesterday."

"What about you, miss?"

The small, bespectacled woman to whom the kid had been talking stepped over to peer over her coworker's shoulder, but just shook her head at the picture. "But so many kids come in every day."

A minor set-back, but Tsuzuki was quick with the recovery. He took out the card with a line drawing of a robot on one side that he had swiped from the victim's wallet and held it up. "We found this on his person. Do you recognize it as one of yours?"

The young man leaned over and squinted at the card. "Those are for the Virtual-On games. He could have gotten it at any game center— Wait, what do you mean 'on his person'? Is he dead?"

"We're asking the questions here," Terazuma said.

"But don't worry, this establishment is not under suspicion. We're merely trying to create a timeline of the victim's last hours." Tsuzuki leaned his elbows on the counter, turning the card in his fingers. "Now, what's this game you're talking about—what does this card do?"

The kid glanced between them before he seemed relaxed enough to answer: "It's a mecha-fighting game. You buy one of these cards and put it in the machine each time you play. The card records your stats so you can take them with you from arcade to arcade and gain experience."

"And where can I find this game?"

The kid behind the counter pointed to a couple of machines with seats in front of their screens, the name written in a large futuristic script across the top. Tsuzuki squinted at it. The machine itself wouldn't tell him anything, and even if they did try inserting the card, there wasn't enough technological literacy between the two of them to get anything useful from it, if there was anything useful to get to begin with. If only Wakaba were here. . . .

He glanced up toward the dark ceiling, and noticed the small reflective bubble of a video camera lens mounted above their heads. If they were lucky, maybe it was trained on the Virtual-On machines.

Terazuma caught his line of sight and said to the two behind the counter, "We're going to need to see your surveillance tapes."

"I can show you," said the woman.

The young man glared at her. "Don't they need a warrant for that, or something?"

But the woman waved his excuse off. "I'd rather assist in the investigation now than have someone come back later with a warrant." She waved Tsuzuki and Terazuma around behind the counter and inside the office, where she took a seat in front of a computer monitor and set to work retrieving the video surveillance footage for the time period Tsuzuki gave her.

"Wow! I didn't know they could do all this with just a computer," Tsuzuki muttered to himself, momentarily forgetting where he was. It earned him a harsh glare from Terazuma. He just hoped the woman would be too busy to have heard, but that turned out not to be the case.

She snorted. "You're kidding, right? We've been digital for years. Where have you two been?"

Where, indeed. Terazuma tried to cover with a laugh that could not have sounded more fake. "Don't pay any attention to my partner," he told her. "He's got a strange sense of humor. I keep telling him no one appreciates jokes they don't get, but he just keeps shooting his mouth off." He nearly snarled the last few words as he shot Tsuzuki a look that made the veteran shinigami shrink.

The woman shook her head. Fortunately for them, however, that was when a figure matching Hiragawa's appearance appeared on the screen. "Slow down," Tsuzuki said, leaning over the back of the chair. "That looks like our kid."

"And he's not alone."

In jerky slow-motion, another figure joined Hiragawa in the footage. It too was male, somewhat taller and slightly older than Hiragawa, wearing the same gray uniform he was with the crest of the Sacred Heart on the jacket breast pocket. As the three watched, the two boys made their way to the Virtual-On machines, Hiragawa eagerly leading the way and his companion trailing behind at a patient pace. When Hiragawa sat down to play, the other merely leaned his elbow on the back of the chair and watched, seeming neither interested in the game nor bored. Like a predator lying in wait, Tsuzuki thought, pretending to indifference until the right moment came to strike. There was no doubt in his mind Hiragawa's companion was involved in the murders—the teenage boy seen with the four older men—though how he was involved or why still eluded him.

Then, smiling politely at something Hiragawa said, the older boy turned to look up, directly into the camera lens.

"Freeze it there! Zoom in on that guy right there, would you?" Tsuzuki said, pointing, though the woman was already doing just that.

"Is there a way we can get a hard copy of this?" Terazuma asked her once Hiragawa's grinning companion filled the frame.

"I can print this out," the woman said, "but if you need a copy of the footage, I might need to see some paperwork. Company policy."

"A print-out would be fine," Tsuzuki said quickly. He would need nothing more than that.

A couple clicks of the mouse later and the image rolled out of the printer. The woman handed it to Tsuzuki, who nearly forgot to thank her as he and Terazuma took their leave. It was not until he had the hard copy in his hand that Tsuzuki was struck by something familiar about Hiragawa's companion. Even though the image was fuzzy, the shaggy brown hair that covered his ears and forehead, the sharp, piercing eyes beneath the dark lines of his eyebrows that were like the eyes of a wolf, and the wide, confident grin recalled a face he swore he had glimpsed before, but not in the gray and navy of Sacred Heart Academy.

"Well, that was fun. I can't believe we're almost through your list already. I think you owe me that donut and coffee break now, Detective," Terazuma said when they were outside. But any wisecrack that would have followed was cut short when he noticed Tsuzuki lost in thought. "What's wrong?"

Tsuzuki shook himself out of his stare. "Oh, nothing. It's just that I feel like I've seen this kid before."

Terazuma took a closer glance himself. "Yeah, well, to be fair, everyone his age looks like that nowadays, so I can see why you'd think so."

"Yeah. Maybe," Tsuzuki agreed.

But that wasn't it. And it didn't explain why he could not shake the suspicion that the mysterious teenage boy was looking right through the camera and cables, encoding and time, and straight at Tsuzuki himself.

-o-

It was still fairly early in the morning when Muraki heard a knock at his office door. Such was not an uncommon occurrence, but usually the strongest wave of students seeking medical attention for small scrapes and bruises or made-up stomach aches came between lunch and the end of classes for the day, when most of the physical education sessions were grouped together.

Thus he was not surprised to see that it was Fujisawa who stepped inside and locked the door behind him. "Are you busy?" he asked in a tone of voice that implied he did not care about the answer.

Muraki swiveled in his chair to face him. "Not particularly."

Being a substitute nurse at the Sacred Heart Academy, where they stuck him in a tiny room on the bottom floor, did not provide much of a mental challenge. Muraki welcomed the change, however, as a necessary step in the process he had set in motion with the boy's help. Here, at least, he had the security and solitude to gather his thoughts and prepare himself for his next move—like a trapdoor spider lying in wait, soaking in the patterns of footsteps resounding above him, literally and metaphorically, until the time he might hear the vibrations of his desired prey just outside his door, and strike.

For now he asked the boy, "To what do I owe this visit?"

Fujisawa chose not to answer in words. A smug smile and a most satisfied sigh told Muraki all he needed to know as Fujisawa dropped down on his back on the bed.

"You certainly appear contented," Muraki observed.

"M-m. I had a great time yesterday—satiating my most base instincts, as you like to put it."

"Hence why you didn't come home until early this morning. You left me no chance to ask you how things went."

Fujisawa laughed and turned his head to look at Muraki, clasping his hands behind his head. "How do you think it went?" he said in a low, lusty tone of voice, as though imparting a wonderful secret. "Your 'servants of Yomi' are no longer lost, Sensei. I've set them on the right track this time for sure, and I know you know what I mean."

He bit his lower lip with barely contained pleasure just at the recollection. If Muraki had known his co-conspirator would have been such a sensitive creature he might have given his choice a second thought.

"Let me guess," he said. "Hiragawa from class two-C."

Fujisawa's smile dimmed. "You already heard?"

"It was all over the news and was announced to the staff this morning. How could I not? The latter make it sound as though you violated him as well."

Fujisawa snorted. "Kid wished. Nah, I made him think I was interested in him, then once he had convinced himself to trust me . . ."

His knee fell as he trailed off, legs parting as casually as though to relieve an itch, though Muraki knew it was something more pressing from which he desired relief. He was not so dense as to miss the boy's meaning.

"You killed him and drank him dry."

Fujisawa smiled dreamily. "It was wonderful, Sensei—just like you told me it would be. There was nothing disgusting about it, not like cutting up those other men. It was so pure, like . . . like _sex_, feeling him inside me—filling me, moving through my body. I never imagined I could feel so refreshed. . . ."

As he spoke, Muraki's gaze lingered on the boy's left hand, which had moved from pillowing his head to stroking the inside of his thigh, the fingers tracing the inseam of his trouser leg. "You are a little monster," Muraki said, and was rewarded by Fujisawa's breathy chuckle. "Come here. Let me have a look at your arm."

The boy did as he was told, rising limberly and coming to stand before Muraki, who took his arm and pushed back the sleeve cuff to reveal the white bandages beneath. Gently he removed the bindings, conscious of Fujisawa's long eyes staring at his every movement. When the scratches from the boy's last encounter at the karaoke house were uncovered, Muraki once again depressed the skin around them, by now not the least surprised that instead of gasps of pain he elicited gasps of curious pleasure.

"I don't see any signs of necrosis," he said, "although the wound is not healing as quickly as I would have liked."

"I feel a lot better."

"Naturally. In your mind you have convinced yourself that the absorption of Hiragawa's fresh blood endowed your body's cells with a more rapid response to injury, at least for the meantime." In the middle of redressing the wound, Muraki stopped and wrapped his fingers around the boy's wrist. "You're hot, Fujisawa."

"Thanks."

"No, I mean that quite literally." He put his palm to the other's forehead just to make sure. "Your temperature feels elevated, I'd say no less than thirty-seven degrees—"

"Isn't that normal?"

"Normal for most people, yes, but quite high for you. Your wounds did not appear to be infected, but I would like to continue to monitor your body temperature over the next week. An infection is something we absolutely cannot risk."

"I'll be more careful in the future."

"Good." Lingering a moment more on the boy's hand, with its curious pink rings around its two outermost fingers, Muraki released him and sat back, reassured by the small smile that was set on Fujisawa's lips. He really was beautiful, just as Saki had been once upon a time, before the evil in his nature had begun to show through. Fujisawa's own brand of cruelty had an alluring purity to it in comparison, one there was no harm in indulging. "Then why not show me how you appreciate all I've done for you."

Like a faithful doll the boy obeyed, taking Muraki's face in his hands and leaning down to lay a kiss on his mouth. His touch was gentle, but just behind it was a strong wave of need that needed only a little encouragement to break through its bonds. Muraki parted his lips for Fujisawa, suckling the tongue that slid without trepidation into his mouth, and pulled Fujisawa closer, between his knees. He breathed deep against the boy's cheek. His mouth was sweet, like overripe fruit sitting out in the sun.

When Muraki began to pull the shirttails out of his trousers, Fujisawa let go a moan against his lips that went right to Muraki's groin. "I want you inside me so bad, Sensei," he murmured in a strained, almost pained voice. "Please. It's been so long. . . ."

He took Muraki's low hum as he unbuttoned Fujisawa's shirt as a negative.

"Come on. You don't know how bad it gets. Don't torture me like this."

"The last thing you need in your condition is more undue stress on your body, let alone another injury to heal," Muraki told him, eliciting a choked sound of disappointment from the boy.

"I'll take it slow. I promise."

Muraki ignored his pleas, though he had to admit it was tempting to cave. It had been a while for him as well. They certainly had the means and the privacy here to do whatever they wished, but it was their respective will power that he could not trust. Fujisawa especially was already too lacking in his sense of self-preservation for Muraki's comfort.

Instead, he thrust his hands up under the opened folds of Fujisawa's shirt and jacket, relishing the way the boy shuddered at his cold touch, and put his mouth to one of the dark nipples he had lain bare. With measured laziness, he moved slowly downward, brushing his lips over Fujisawa's soft, eternally adolescent skin, tracing the faint lines in his torso with the tip of his tongue. The sighs that slipped from Fujisawa's lips fell on his ears like music drifting from another room. In his mind's eye, he could see those tender bits of flesh as he had on many occasions, swollen and vermilion from their kiss, parting with their owner's constant subconscious need for oral gratification.

Muraki could not help but smile as he recalled the circumstances surrounding the boy's past: Now he knew intimately how a God-fearing man of pure intention could have been driven to murder by the mouth of a teenage boy, and this one in particular. He had done well this time around in choosing his weapon.

He backed away for only a moment and noticed Fujisawa had slipped one hand inside his trousers to stroke himself. "Don't," Muraki told him firmly, removing the hand himself, and knew Fujisawa would obey him even on this. The boy's hands went to Muraki's head instead, his fingers tangling themselves in the silver hair, as Muraki undid the trousers' fly himself. He wrapped his fingers around Fujisawa's erection, applying just the right amount of pressure so as to leave no question as to who was the author of Fujisawa's satisfaction. It never hurt to remind the boy now and then: He belonged to Muraki completely, body and soul.

Fujisawa cried out, leaning over Muraki as pleasure coursed through his body. It won him a smile from the doctor. On a cruel whim he ran his tongue over the base of Fujisawa's cock, relishing the bitter taste of adolescent desire there, and grazed the tender skin with his incisors. He was not surprised when Fujisawa thrust instinctively into his hand.

The boy was wound tight, nor had Muraki expected it to take much to drive him to orgasm. "Sensei—" Fujisawa cried out, and Muraki reached for a hand towel from the table beside him. A few strokes of the terrycloth was all it took to finish Fujisawa. His long fingers gripped the back of Muraki's shirt like a lifeline until he was empty and the tension finally lifted from his muscles.

And Muraki had to wonder if it was in fact him for whom the boy had called, or if his mind had not wandered to a previous time and place at the moment of release.

When Fujisawa sucked in a deep breath, however, like an infant's first breath of life, and lowered his dark eyes to flicker over Muraki's face, it was only Muraki he saw in the lucidity of the afterglow. His master, his crafter. His avenger.

Muraki pushed his swivel chair away, leaving the towel in the boy's hand. He could not but notice the way the boy recoiled at the unexpected show of repulsion.

"Don't just stand there, Fujisawa," Muraki said. "You should get to class. You got what you came for, didn't you?"

Instead of an answer, Fujisawa threw the towel in a nearby hamper, and grudgingly began to dress himself again. "Not entirely," he said after a moment. "But I guess it'll do for now."

Muraki smiled at that. "Come here."

Like a beaten dog, Fujisawa returned to him, kneeling beside the doctor's chair with his shirt still half untucked, leaning into the palm that cradled his cheek. "You did well yesterday," Muraki told him. "Very well. You have yet to fall short of my expectations. You know that, don't you?"

A shadow of a smile returned to Fujisawa's lips as he raised his eyes—yes, as alluring and dangerous as his dear half-brother had been once.

As alluring and dangerous as _that boy_ had been at their reunion, almost five years before.

-o-

The faces of the students surrounding his desk were full of anticipation. Boys sitting backwards in chairs pulled up for a closer look, girls sitting on nearby desks, whispering to one another, all watching the deck of cards that sat beneath his hand with bated breath.

Hisoka didn't mind indulging them. His expression grave, he picked the next card from the top of the deck, glanced at it, and flipped it around for the others to see. "Six of spades."

There was a collective sigh among those gathered, though none of them could have known what that meant.

"Sawada."

Hisoka turned his gaze to the boy in question, an athletic kid who didn't look or act it but felt like one of the brightest in the class. Sawada started under his dark and serious look, stammering, "Y-yes?"

"That calculus test coming up next week?" Hisoka began, knowing not only Sawada but all those present would be hanging on his every word. "The one you've been so worried about? Well, you don't have to worry. You're going to do a lot better than the last one. This time, you're going to ace it."

Sawada let out the breath he had been holding, while some of the boys and girls around him wished the boy luck. "Do me next, Kurosaki," said another girl, leaning one hand on Hisoka's desk.

She was slightly overweight, but very pretty. "It's Jonouchi, right?"

The girl nodded emphatically.

Hisoka picked up another card. Queen of hearts. How appropriate. "This is a very good card," he told the crowd.

Some other girls, no doubt Jonouchi's friends, pressed forward, barely containing their squeals. "What does it mean?"

Hisoka put the card to his forehead, closing his eyes and pretending to contemplate its meaning in great depth, as though drawing the future from the ether through the card. In fact, it was really the girl from whom he drew, though she would never have believed how easily she allowed any passerby to read what was in her heart. "You will get a phone call. Within the week," he told her.

"A phone call?" said one of the other girls. "That's kind of vague."

But Hisoka looked at Jonouchi; and by the expression on her face, his prediction was anything but meaningless. "Jonouchi knows what kind of phone call I mean," he said as he held the girl's gaze. "A special call. A call from someone who means a lot to you."

"No way!" said another of her friends, putting her hands to her mouth to hide her wide grin, while another girl gave Jonouchi a playful shove of mixed congratulations and jealousy. "Oh my god, how do you know that?" they asked Hisoka, who could only shrug and say he couldn't give away all his secrets.

It was lunch time, and most of the class of 2-C had already gone to the cafeteria or staked out a place in the early autumn sun outside, enjoying the fine weather while they still had a chance. There was rain in the week's forecast, and that was one prediction Hisoka did not need the powers of empathy to deduce.

The first half of his first day of class at Sacred Heart Academy had concluded without incident. If one excluded his stint as fortuneteller, then it was fair to say the novelty of his presence in 2-C had been completely overshadowed by the death of their classmate the day before. These were the kids who had seen Hiragawa day in and out, although—it seemed to Hisoka now—he must have kept to himself, as he did not seem to be known very well by any of them.

After all, his classmates hadn't been too stunned by events to extend a warm welcome to a boy that, for all they knew, had come to replace him. It began when one of Hisoka's female neighbors, probably intending to hit on him, asked him what he did for a hobby. After that, three little words had been all it took to gather a considerable crowd: I tell fortunes.

Hisoka was actually enjoying himself. In his five years as a shinigami, he had gradually come to hone the talent that once alienated him from others into a useful tool for investigation, to the point it no longer frightened him to use it. Already he was creating a map of the emotional geography of his classroom in his mind: The students' deepest secrets, their hopes for the future, even their embarrassing histories they feared their classmates knowing were all laid bare in impression form before Hisoka, and he would not be human if he didn't find that power somewhat exhilarating.

Yet so far he had discovered nothing new relating to his case; and reading so many hearts and minds did eventually begin to tax him. After so many readings, he had to tell his classmates that that was enough for one day, that he was hungry and needed to eat before he ran out of time, eliciting groans of disappointment from those who had not yet had their turn.

Hisoka laughed at that. And it wasn't until the others started returning their chairs and filing out of the room for lunch that he realized just how alien that sensation was to him. Strange, he'd never regretted for missing out on a normal high school life before now, even if it was just the slightest, niggling sense of remorse.

"_Waichaa_! You're really good at this fortune-telling thing, aren't you?"

Hisoka looked up at the one who had spoken. He was an amiable-looking boy who even now when everyone else had gone was leaning against the open window. Hisoka hadn't noticed him before. He scrutinized the other for a moment, but could find no reason to view the boy as a threat. For all he he could tell, that amiable manner was genuine.

"Not really," Hisoka sighed. "Just between you and me, I don't know if any of that stuff is really going to happen. I just tell people what they want to hear."

"Yeah, but how do you know that?"

"You'd be surprised what kind of information people give out about themselves without realizing it. About their fears, their desires—things like that. I just feel the truth out." That wasn't so far from the truth. Hisoka gathered up the deck of cards with a nimbleness he had learned from Tsuzuki and his stint as a dealer, and put them back in their box. "It's called cold reading."

"That sure takes the mystery out of it."

"I'm sorry." But at least he wouldn't be asking for his own fortune to be read, Hisoka hoped.

"That's alright," the boy acquiesced, approaching. "Just don't tell me there's no Santa Claus. It's Kurosaki, right? Sorry, I didn't catch your first name."

"Hisoka."

The other looked at him strangely. "You don't look like a Hisoka. I have an aunt named Hisoka. You don't mind if I call you Saki for short, do you?"

Hisoka did mind—that name didn't bode well with him at all—but he did not say so out loud. He merely shrugged. If he could find an ally in this place in this boy, someone he could trust and who wouldn't think twice about him asking so many questions, he could call Hisoka whatever he wanted.

The other started. "Sorry, I didn't introduce myself. I'm Inoue Jun'ichiro, but everyone just calls me Jun."

Jun extended his hand, and Hisoka couldn't help hesitating before he shook it, reminding himself this was after all a Christian school with some European habits. And besides, it might prove useful. He braced himself, but all he felt through Jun's grip was a vague sorrow and guilt that didn't show on the boy's face at all. Could it have been connected to his classmate's death the day before?

"Do you want to get some lunch?" Jun asked when Hisoka released him, pointing a thumb over his shoulder so casually Hisoka had to wonder if he had imagined those emotions completely. "I could give you a quick tour of the place if you haven't had one already."

"Sure." Hisoka nodded. "That would be nice."

"You've probably noticed the staff's a little bit out of it today," Jun said as they left the classroom. "They're not usually like that, you know."

"Yeah, I know. I heard about the boy who was killed yesterday. It was terrible, the way they found him. . . ."

Hisoka glanced at Jun, studying his profile for a reaction; but his words could draw no reaction from Jun's face. His polite smile held, though Hisoka knew even that was often a mask for hidden turmoil, held in close check just beneath the surface.

"Yeah," Jun said with a sigh. "Sure is bad luck for you, though, transferring here the day after something like that. But don't get the wrong idea. Whatever kids are saying, rest assured it has nothing to do with our school. I mean, at least, I don't think Toshio was targeted because he went to Sacred Heart, or anything like that."

I wouldn't be so sure, Hisoka thought. "What makes you say that?"

Jun glanced at him, his smile faltering. "Just a gut feeling I have. Nothing like that has ever happened here before. If anything, we're too boring."

"Thanks for the reassurance," Hisoka said, and decided not to press the issue of Hiragawa's murder with him at this time. There would be plenty of opportunities for that latter, once Jun had come to trust him a little more.

But Jun did not need his prompting. He murmured quietly to himself, "Maybe that was his problem."

-o-

Asai was eating lunch at his computer when Imai returned from the morgue. "I just got the autopsy report on that Hiragawa Toshio kid," Imai told his partner, tossing the file onto their desk. "The COD was exsanguination like we thought—no wounds other than the gash on the inner thigh, and his system was clean. ME's thinking he might have been accosted for sex based on how he was found. The kid changed his mind, had his femoral artery ripped out as payback."

Asai glanced at him, then pulled the file over his way, opening it to the contents. "Don't get any crumbs on it," Imai chided him as he sat down on the edge of the desk.

Which the other ignored. "So the bite marks?" he asked around a bite of sandwich.

"Not canine after all. Human."

"Jesus."

"Tell me about it. Kinda makes you lose your appetite, don't it?"

As though to spite him—though with this guy, Imai could never be sure—Asai took another bite of his sandwich. A big one. It made Imai, who couldn't get the image of the victim's masticated thigh out of his head, want to vomit. He could smell it from here. Olive loaf and horseradish on rye.

"You know," Asai said when he had swallowed, "vampirism is not as uncommon as people think."

"Come on—"

"I'm serious. It's not all Dracula, Nosferatu nonsense. There are a lot of otherwise normal people who claim to engage in blood-drinking, saying it rejuvenates them, gives them the energy fix they need to survive from month to month or year to year. They believe that by drinking another's blood, some of that person's life force will be transferred to them. Likewise, ritual cannibalism—"

"Hold on—hold on a minute, Asai!" Imai raised a hand, pinching the bridge of his nose with the fingers of the other. "You're going from vampirism to cannibalism, now? We're not even sure if the kid's blood was drunk. For all we know it was carted away in bottles, maybe to be sold or used in a blood transfusion. Maybe just for shits and giggles, I don't know. I saw _Dr. Phibes_. Or maybe the ME was right and that alley wasn't where he was murdered—just the result of some kinky sex gone wrong."

Asai fixed him a sharp gaze. "You really believe that?"

"No," Imai had to admit after he had thought about it for a moment. He ran his fingers through his hair with a sigh. "No. Because the bicycle found in the alley was the victim's, and his clothes and everything else about the scene indicate he went back there willingly, didn't even put up a fight. Which means there was a certain level of trust involved in this killing."

"Trust is an essential part of vampirism as well," Asai added with a shrug.

"Yeah, but those everyday vampires you're talking about don't kill their victims, do they? That would defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?"

Asai just stared at him for a moment, then raised his sandwich again. Imai had to turn away.

"Teenagers get tangled up in some weird shit, don't they?" Imai thought aloud at the venetian blinds on the window over his partner's head. "I remember this case from Nagasaki several years ago—private Catholic school, just like this kid went to—these two boys were found mutilated, murdered, and dumped in the ocean like sacrifices in some kind of satanic rite. They found out later that the killer was their own teacher. The boys, both leaders of the student council—both upstanding, upperclass, religious young men you'd never suspect of anything more than a little exam cheating—they'd been competing over who got to sleep with this teacher and everything. Really renews your confidence in the future leaders of our country, doesn't it?"

Imai trailed off, and Asai watched him, silent and patient as always.

"Anyway," the former said, "by the time it was all over, the school's chapel had burned to the ground and five other people were dead, including the teacher who had started it all, the priest, and the guy they'd just got to sub for the priest."

"Tough luck," Asai said flatly. "Yeah, I remember hearing about that. It was on the national news. You think this kid was part of some schoolyard plot like that?"

"I don't know what to think," Imai said with another sigh. "I'm having a hard time trying to figure out motive on this damn thing as it is."

"Huh. Hiragawa was an AB-type, too."

Imai started. "What?"

He looked down at his partner, who was pointing to a section of the victim's medical chart. Imai could clearly read the two Roman letters scrawled there. "His blood type was AB. That ring any bells?"

"Yeah," Imai muttered. "The victims in the liver-taker case. They were all AB also."

"Uncanny coincidence."

But Imai knew, in their line of work, "There are no coincidences."

Asai cracked an incongruous smile as he looked up at his partner. "You think the kid's the fifth victim."

"Anything's possible."

"Even though he still has his liver and his heart. Hey, my wife forgot to pack me fruit today. Are you going to eat your orange?"

"I'm not hungry. Knock yourself out."

As his partner dug into the skin of the orange, releasing a quiet squirt of juice, Imai had to mentally cringe. "In any case," Asai was saying as he unwrapped the fruit, "we really should be getting started on those interviews. Our time's a'wasting—"

"I know, I know—"

"Hey, Imai! You guys working the Hiragawa case? That kid they think was murdered in the attempted rape?"

Imai looked up to see Inoue glancing over his desk. A muscular man in his late-forties, Inoue Masao looked every part the yakuza thug he used to be, back when he was working undercover in the organized crime unit. That time was long passed, but his presence still managed to make Imai nervous, especially when he stood too close with a look of painful concentration on his face like he was doing now.

"Where'd you hear that?" said Imai. "We haven't released those details."

His partner Asai cleared his throat and gave him a look as if to say, you're on your own, and got up with his orange to leave them alone.

"I was just down visiting the CSU about this case I'm working on when I heard them talking about it. I hadn't heard the kid's name when the story came out on the news, but now that I have. . . ."

"Why? Has he come up in one of your investigations?"

"No, he used to be a friend of my son is what. They were in the same class together." It was because of his son, now enrolled in a Christian high school, that Inoue had been relocated to his relatively safer and less interesting position dealing with the likes of property damage and petty thievery, though his exploits before he settled down were notorious around the office. No doubt it was because of the likes of the characters he used to bring in that he was one of the few cops Imai knew who had a license to carry a firearm, though Inoue rarely brought it out of his locker except for cleaning. Which kind of defeated the purpose, but Inoue looked as though his fists could be registered as deadly weapons, so Imai didn't worry one bit about the man's safety.

As for the son, from what few times Imai had seen him, the two didn't look or act a thing alike. Inoue said as though to himself, "I always knew that Hiragawa kid was a little bent, though, if you know what I mean."

"No, I don't," Imai said in a tone of voice that implied he did enough not to want to go there. "What are you saying? You think he brought it on himself?"

"Of course not. But I've been around long enough to know what lengths some people will go to to get a fix."

"A fix, huh?" Imai looked down at his notes. Asai had something like that, too. . . .

"Anyway, what're you doing cooped up in here? Shouldn't your and Asai's asses be out in the field interviewing the witnesses? Looks like you've got a list of places that kid frequented, there."

"Can't," Imai shrugged. "I misplaced my badge and the chief doesn't want me out there till I've found it."

Inoue laughed at that. "'Misplaced'?"

Imai managed to swallow his irritation. "It's no big deal. I probably left it at home by mistake."

"Left it at home?" Inoue echoed once again. "That don't sound like you, Imai. Sounds like you need to tell your new girlfriend to give you a break once in a while, huh? All those late nights affecting your concentration."

Imai made an effort to ignore him, and while he was doing so, Inoue glanced at the corner of his desk. "Hey, Imai?"

"Yeah?"

"This your badge right here?"

Imai started as Inoue picked it up and handed it to him. "Shit." It was his badge, no doubt about that. It must have been hiding behind the picture of his sister's kids he kept on his desk all along. But still, he didn't know how he could have been so absent-minded. Or blind. "Thanks," he muttered as he stood, hurriedly clipped it to his belt and grabbed his notebook and file.

"What, no 'I'll buy you a drink, Inoue'?" the other called after him.

But Imai was in too great a hurry to answer. At least, that was his excuse and he was sticking to it.

-o-

"And I wouldn't use the restrooms off the locker room if I were you," Jun was busy telling Hisoka as the two made their way back to their classroom. "The plumbing's a bit dodgy and it smells kinda off during the warm months. Best to stick with the facilities on the second floor as a general rule, unless it's really an emergency."

Hisoka couldn't help cracking a smile. "That's good advice. Thanks, Jun."

"No problem. That's what I'm here for," the other boy sighed and folded his arms behind his head.

They walked along in silence for a short while—a pleasant change from their rushed lunch, during which Hisoka had not been able to get a word in edgewise if he'd wanted to—until Jun said as the thought just struck him, "Hey, Saki, are you busy after class? Wanna grab a coffee downtown?"

"Oh. Well—" Hisoka started to decline on instinct, then caught himself. For the sake of the investigation, couldn't he spare a half hour or so? Not to mention, there was something just beneath Jun's cheerful veneer that spoke to Hisoka of a deep desperation for company when he said, "My treat? I know you've got some catching up to do, so I won't keep you long."

"Sure. Why not." Hisoka shrugged.

That renewed the smile on Jun's face. He went to open the classroom door for them, but barely touched the handle when it slid open and a taller boy appeared on the other side. Both parties started at having almost run into one another. "Oh. Excuse us, sempai," Jun said quickly, but the other ignored him.

Instead, it was Hisoka he stared at. His mouth hanging slightly agape and his brows knitted as though he was trying to place Hisoka.

Which Hisoka was doing himself. All of a sudden he was struck by a strange sense of deja vu—struck as solidly as though he had walked into an invisible wall. Something about the young man was uncannily familiar—something about him that made Hisoka's head hurt—something in his long eyes that Hisoka could have sworn had scrutinized him in just the same way before. All he could think with any clarity was that that young man should not be there, standing right in front of him, in the present. Hisoka wasn't at all sure why, but he should not have been there.

"Do I know you?" Hisoka said.

At that the other recovered, flashing Hisoka a smile he found disconcerting. "I don't believe we've actually met. But I know who _you_ are. You're the new kid, Kurosaki Hisoka of two-C."

Hisoka started. How did he . . . ? No, word must have gotten around about his card-reading already. It had to be something as simple as that. But there was something familiar about the way he said Hisoka's name. . . .

"Ah, Saki?" Jun began beside him, "this is—"

"Fujisawa, three-C," the other said quickly, his eyes never once leaving Hisoka's. Unlike Jun, he didn't make any move to shake Hisoka's hand. "Nice to make your acquaintance. It looks like we'll be seeing a lot of each other, what with us being in the same class and all, 'Saki.'" Fujisawa chuckled. "What, Inoue, you think just because you got a cute nickname that gives you the right to push one on everyone else?"

Jun looked down, his aura radiating resentment for his upperclassman. And while he was thus distracted, Fujisawa reached out one hand and ran his fingers beneath the edge of the lapel of Hisoka's jacket. He clucked his tongue. "Tch. This school's colors don't suit you as well as the last one's, though."

A shiver ran down Hisoka's spine, though he refused to show it. Fujisawa's murmured words were much too intimate for Hisoka's comfort; but he could read nothing from the light touch against his uniform's fabric.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Hisoka said, trying to bait the other.

But Fujisawa wasn't taking it. "Don't you?"

"Fujisawa-sempai is a recent transfer, too," Jun said. "He came here after summer break. Er, you two didn't know each other before . . . did you?"

"Of course not," Hisoka said, turning to him and breaking the spell Fujisawa's intense stare seemed to have cast. "It was probably my mistake."

"Sure. Perhaps that's all it was. A harmless case of mistaken identity." Fujisawa's grin sat lopsidedly on his lips as he looked down his nose at Hisoka. "In any case, tough luck on your part, isn't it, Kurosaki? Starting here the day after one of your classmates was found murdered by some pervert in an alley? I hope no one's been treating you like a suspect—I mean, you really can't help your poor timing—"

"Shut up! What the hell do you know about it?" Jun said, with an anger behind his words that seemed so out of character, both the other boys were momentarily taken aback.

Fujisawa frowned, for the first time since their run-in acknowledging Jun to his face. "Huh. Seems I hit a tender spot. . . ." But he sounded far from repentant.

"Come on, Saki," Jun snarled over his shoulder as he strode inside the room. "This guy isn't worth our time."

"Yeah, I'd better get to class myself." Fujisawa nodded over his own shoulder. "But I'll catch you later, Kurosaki. I look forward to it."

_Catch you later_. . . . Those words had an ominous ring to Hisoka's ears. If only he could fill in the crucial missing piece in his mind, maybe he would know what to really make of the whole encounter. He followed Fujisawa with his eyes until the third-year had disappeared from the door frame, replaced by his own classmates returning from lunch.

"Don't pay him any attention," Jun told him in a low voice, shaking Hisoka out of his stare. "He just says things like that to get a reaction. I don't care what anyone else says: The guy's a creep through and through, not a genuine bone in his body. I don't see why everyone thinks he's so charming."

Maybe it was only Hisoka's imagination, but he thought he heard Jun's voice waver just slightly when he said 'everyone.'

-o-

Imai was losing his patience. He could feel it trickling away every second more he had to spend in this migraine factory. The young punk behind the counter at the game center had been studying his badge for at least the last sixty seconds as though he'd never seen one before. Hadn't he ever watched a cop drama in his life?

"The name's the same," he finally said, "but you're not Imai."

Imai nearly blew his top. Beside him, Asai started out of his staring at a couple of young women playing Dance Dance Revolution and turned to the clerk. "Of course, I'm Ima— Don't you think I'd know who I am, kid?"

The clerk merely shrugged. "You're not the guy who came in here earlier."

"What guy?" Asai butted in.

"This detective came in here with his partner this morning asking about the surveillance tapes. He had the exact same badge and everything."

"And it didn't occur to you it might be fake or stolen?" Imai blasted him.

Again, the kid shrugged, and it was up to Asai to keep a level head while his partner mumbled something about not believing this. "Did his partner go by Asai?"

"I think it was Tera-something. That's right, Terazuma."

"Of course he wouldn't go by Asai, idiot," said Imai. "Who'd believe a couple of detectives going by the names Asai and Imai?"

The clerk chuckled. "You do have to admit it doesn't help your credibility any."

"Oh, for crying out— I was being sarcastic!"

"We're still going to need those surveillance tapes," Asai tried, "and a description of the two men masquerading as detectives."

"Yeah, right," said the clerk, folding his arms over his chest. "Just as soon as I get some proof you guys are the real McCoy."

"Can I use your phone?"

As Asai dialed the chief, Imai threw up his hands in exasperation. This was going to take forever—and in the meantime, the impostors would have gotten to who-knows-where before they could make any serious headway on the case. Never had he felt so strongly that time was of the essence as he did with this case, because only on this case had he ever felt the presence of some unseen force trying to come between him and solving it. And he was sick of apologizing for it.

The whole mess was almost enough to make a Buddhist out of him.

-o-

There was no breeze on the school's roof that afternoon when Hisoka went up to make a phone call. The sound of students talking and laughing with one another as they left the building drifted up to him from the walk below. Leaning against the railing that surrounded the edge, Hisoka scrolled through the short list of numbers in his cell phone's address book and hit Tsuzuki's.

It only rang once before he heard his partner's voice. "Hisoka! Are you free to talk?"

"Would I be calling if I wasn't?" Hisoka sighed, crossing one leg over the other. "What's up? You've got some information for me?"

"Yeah, a big break. I think I've found our killer, or at very least our lure. Terazuma and I went down to the game center the kid was at yesterday while you were in class, and got them to show us their surveillance video."

Hisoka rolled his eyes. He could just imagine the pageantry that went into that. Then again, maybe it wasn't pathetic as all that. The two had done the same sorts of things years ago, when they were partners, long before Hisoka ever met them. Maybe some of Terazuma's police experience actually rubbed off on Tsuzuki—when they weren't at one another's throats.

"That's great," Hisoka said. "And? Was he with someone?"

"Sure was. Another kid from the same school—"

"Let me guess," Hisoka cut him off, pretending to think hard. "I'm seeing a seventeen-year-old male, about half a head taller than me, cocky, with shaggy brown hair and a really predatory grin."

"All the better to eat you with, my dear. That's him to a tee. How'd you know? Or are you just guessing based on the witness descriptions from the other murders?"

"No. I ran into him today."

"Oh."

"His name is Fujisawa and he's in the victim's class, one year up." Hisoka paused, looking over the railing at the tiny figures below. Jun was down there, talking to a couple of girls about something grave, judging by the way they carried their bodies. While Jun nodded to something they said—it could have related to Hiragawa's death—he happened to look up and spot Hisoka, and waved up to him, smiling again. Hisoka signaled to him that he would be a minute more as he said into the phone: "Tsuzuki, this might sound a little strange, but I had this strong feeling I'd met him before somewhere."

"Doesn't seem strange at all," Tsuzuki said. "I felt the exact same way when I saw him on the tape."

"Does the name ring any bells for you?"

"No, but you might have better luck ID-ing him. I've got a print-out of his picture I'd like to show you. . . ." He trailed off, and Hisoka heard him talking to someone in the background. "Terazuma wants to know if you want to meet us for some eats."

"Please, Kurosaki, for my sake," came the other's smaller voice from the background. "I've had no one to talk to but this loser all day."

"Sorry," Hisoka said. "I'm going out."

Tsuzuki's tone brightened at that. "You got a date?"

Which made his partner blush. "Not with a girl. . . . Look, it's not like that. I'm going to see if I can't find out anything else that might be of use to us in solving this case. I'll meet you back at the hotel this afternoon and you can take me out to dinner. Okay? We can trade information then."

As expected, Tsuzuki whined about being turned down. Hisoka actually felt somewhat relieved when he flipped the phone closed.

He leaned back against the railing a moment more before heading down to meet Jun, tipping his head back to better enjoy this all too rare feeling of warm sunlight on his face. When he closed his eyes, however, Fujisawa's features were there behind his eyelids. _This school's colors. . . ._ As opposed to where?

Hisoka opened his eyes to the bright sun. Let it burn away that image. The sun itself couldn't hurt the likes of him anyhow. But there was one nagging question it could not bleach from his mind: Where have I seen him before?

Or, perhaps more to the point, where has he seen me?

-o-

"It sounds like you had fun today," Tsuzuki said that evening after dinner, when they had returned to the hotel room they shared. He dunked his tea bag into a mug of hot water a few times before taking it over to the table in front of the window where Hisoka was searching on the laptop.

"M-m. Jun and I went to this coffee shop on Shower Street after class," Hisoka said, eyes glued to the screen. "You would have liked it, Tsuzuki."

"You and this Jun kid hit it off?"

"I don't know. He means well, I know that. But that wasn't why I agreed to go with him." His voice softened as he said, "You should have felt what I felt around him. He was terrified to go downtown alone, thought someone was going to do to him what they did to Hiragawa just because they went to the same school." Hisoka knitted his brows. "It's weird, but Jun seemed to be the only one who really cared that Hiragawa was dead."

"It's probably not as weird as you think. It sounds like Hiragawa didn't have a whole lot of friends there."

"Maybe not. But just that some of the things his classmates were thinking about while he was lying in a morgue somewhere. . . ."

Tsuzuki chuckled, "I'm more surprised you actually offered to read their fortunes."

"I couldn't very well refuse by then." Hisoka glanced up at him. "And even so, what's wrong with that?"

"Nothing. I mean, it's not like you. I'm just so proud of you, Hisoka, interacting with kids your own age."

Hisoka covered his embarrassment with a cough, and Tsuzuki set his mug down on the table.

"Hey, Hisoka, can you guess what I'm thinking right now?" He bent over, leaning closer toward Hisoka and meeting his eyes, trying his hardest to keep a serious expression on his face.

After one look, Hisoka just sighed and shook his head. "Jesus, Tsuzuki. You're incorrigible, you know that—"

"What? I wasn't thinking anything inappropriate—"

"Do you even realize how much room service costs? We're on a budget, you dork. If you're still that hungry, there's a convenience store across the street. Go get yourself some exercise."

Tsuzuki chuckled as he straightened. Dead on as always. And when it came down to it, that was so much of why he loved having Hisoka as a partner. Communication came so much easier with him, even when they said nothing. Even when they grew exasperated with one another.

That was something he realized earlier that day while he was out with Terazuma. Nothing against the man, but they were and always had been oil and water. It wasn't simply a matter of predictability or routine. Unlike then, the partnership he had now with Hisoka was one of trust, and that meant never having to beg the other's forgiveness. To think it had taken him sixty years to finally find that.

He stood back with his cup of tea, watching Hisoka's progress over the boy's shoulder. He recognized some of the names of people and places that flashed across the screen, some of them recalling frustration, others sorrow and guilt. The few that recalled only indifference must have been the times things actually ended well. And what did that say for this career? "You're searching through our old case files?"

Hisoka nodded. "I told you I remembered the name of the guy in your picture from somewhere before. It must have come up in a previous investigation."

Tsuzuki took a sip of tea, glancing at the glossy that lay on top of the pile of paperwork.

"Fujisawa city comes up a few times," Hisoka said absently, "but so far no—"

He stopped, and leaned forward for a better look at the screen.

Tsuzuki followed suit. The two characters of the boy's name were highlighted wherever they appeared in the text, which was a considerable number of times. Tsuzuki quickly scanned the rest of the file as Hisoka scrolled up, and slowly the memories of the particular case returned and coalesced in his mind. "Hisoka . . . this is your report on the Saint Michel case, isn't it?"

"Yes. It is."

Saint Michel preparatory school. A private Catholic high school for boys in Nagasaki with some of the best exam scores in the country. That was, until it was targeted by a devil intent on avenging Tsuzuki's overthrowing of his colleague Surgatanus—and winning his position in Hell. When it possessed the student council president and prompted him to commit a horrific suicide, that was when the two of them had been called in by Enma. But that revelation, not to mention the victim's affair with his teacher Mitani and the subsequent heated rivalry between the student council officers, had come out only later; and Tsuzuki had had no control over the events that followed. The devil's return, the fire in the chapel, Mitani's death. . . . He had blamed himself for so much of it then, perhaps that was why, "I had almost forgotten about the whole thing."

"I remember it was a disturbing case on many levels," Hisoka agreed. "It seems like a nightmare looking back, like something so strange it couldn't have really happened. I guess we must have pushed it out of our minds, you and me both. Then again, it's difficult to recall anything before Kyoto very clearly."

"Yeah, I guess." Or maybe it was the fact that none of the victims would have lost their lives, nor would Mitani have become a murderer, if it hadn't been for Tsuzuki.

As though reading his mind, Hisoka said in a low voice, "But you do have to admit that case and this one do share some similarities. Both times it seems the killer's motive was just to send a message to you."

Seeming to realize how the bluntness of his words might not be appreciated, Hisoka turned away from the screen. "I'm sorry, Tsuzuki. I didn't mean it like that—"

"But you're absolutely right. Aren't you? Which gives us all the more reason to find our killer now." And not dwell on feelings of guilt and self-loathing, Tsuzuki told himself, leaning over Hisoka's shoulder. He had not personally cut out those men's livers, or attacked the Hiragawa boy. Blaming himself would not undo what was done. "So where does this Fujisawa guy come in? Wouldn't he be a bit old for high school by now?"

Hisoka scrolled down—and did a double-take. "This can't be right." He pulled up another window, typing Fujisawa's name into the search field, and sent the inquiry.

A moment later, a profile of the same boy the two had seen that day popped up, complete with a headshot—the same headshot every individual had taken when their soul went through processing in Meifu.

The dossier in Juuohcho's system did not lie. Fujisawa was dead. He had died four and a half years before, found washed ashore the morning of the day of the fire at Saint Michel.

Hisoka spun in his seat. "But that's the same guy!" he said with a conviction Tsuzuki rarely saw in his reserved partner. "I swear, Tsuzuki, this is the exact same person I ran into today, and he was walking around just fine! He spoke to me and Jun, we couldn't have both been imagining things. He touched my jacket—"

"I believe you, Hisoka."

But it looked like Hisoka hardly believed himself. He grabbed the print-out Tsuzuki had obtained earlier and studied it closely, his gaze flashing between it and the picture on the screen. He shook his head. "I don't understand. How does a person who's been dead for four years wind up on video surveillance footage?"

"More importantly," Tsuzuki said, "how does he murder five people?"


	4. All the king's horses

"Okay, now, _that_ is somethin' you don't hear every day."

And if anyone were an expert on such things, it was Watari.

He blinked at Tsuzuki over the top of his glasses as the information the other had just given him, a basic summation of his current case, slowly sank into the finer crevices within his mind. He remained stuck in the position he had been in when he first asked Tsuzuki to explain himself, slouching in his office chair, one leg thrown over the other, an elbow half falling off the armrest. His lunch, some reheated spaghetti in a Tupperware container, was getting cold—while its tempting garlic and tomato aroma was reminding Tsuzuki that it was past time to be taking his own lunch break. "And you're sure it ain't just someone pretendin' to be this guy?" Watari was saying, cocking his head. "He didn't have a twin or anything? No, wait, a younger brother who looks just like him—"

Tsuzuki frowned. "I'm serious, Watari."

"So am I!" Coming back to himself, the man in question straightened up, grabbed the remote to his stereo system and pushed the pause button. The jaunty strains of "Hakone Hachi-ri no Hanjiro" were cut abruptly short, thrusting the office into the quiet the turn their conversation had taken demanded. "What you're tellin' me frankly doesn't make any sense, Tsuzuki."

"No need to tell me twice. But I thought if anyone could explain to me how a person can come back from the dead, it would be you."

"You mean, you expect me to pull some scientific explanation for the whole thing outta my hat that's gonna make it all better, don't ya? Well, I ain't gonna sing you no lullabies." Watari frowned. He picked up his Tupperware container and twirled some noodles around his plastic fork, but they never reached his mouth. "You guys are into some serious shit, no matter how you wanna look at it. Reanimatin' the dead? It ain't natural. It's everything this system," he gestured around them with his eyes, "was designed to protect against."

"I know," Tsuzuki said. "But don't you see? Just by saying that, you're admitting that these sorts of things do happen. Souls get mixed up—"

"No, Tsuzuki. Souls get lost, they get confused and angry. And, yes, sometimes they do get even. But one thing they certainly don't do is climb back into their corpses and start prancin' around."

"Unless someone brings them back. Remember Maria Wong? Of course, you do, you have her song collection. Well, she was brought back against her will."

"Yes, after she had slit an artery or two, and her soul had yet to arrive for processin'. This is a whole 'nother kettle of fish. Now, you just got done tellin' me this kid who's supposedly walkin' around downtown Kumamoto mutilatin' people had his head cut open."

"Among other things," Tsuzuki grimaced.

Prompting one from Watari as well. "You actually saw that?"

"Believe me, if this seems surreal to you, imagine how I must feel."

Watari set his lunch back on the desk and pushed it away from him. 003 eyed it jealously.

With a sigh, Tsuzuki straightened back up and put his hands on his hips. "We know one thing is the same. Muraki brought the girl back then and he's brought back this Fujisawa kid now."

"You have hard proof of that?"

"Well . . . no. But we know he also attempted to bring back his brother who had been dead for fifteen years," he added at Watari's sigh, "but couldn't accomplish it for one reason or another." One of which was Tsuzuki himself. But he shut what little he remembered of that time from his mind; where this guy was concerned, he couldn't afford to dwell on possibilities that never came to pass. "My point is, he certainly has a history of this sort of thing, and time and the condition of the body are not deterrents to him. How he's done it is another matter entirely. The circumstances surrounding his two victims are completely different—miles apart, really—"

"Careful there, Tsuzuki. You just called your prime suspect a victim."

Tsuzuki blinked. "That's beside the point. Short of having Enma personally order the retrieval of a soul from wherever it's been sent to, how would someone even begin to pull this off?"

Watari was silent for a long moment before he finally said to the ceiling, "I've been wonderin' if you could clone a soul."

The other shinigami started. "Come again?"

Watari swiveled to face him. "I know what you're thinkin'. In order to do that one would have to be akin to God. But all this new research comin' out about how our brains process memory, hypothetical though it may be, got me thinkin' that at very least creatin' a duplicate of a person's mind wouldn't be completely impossible. They said the same thing about man walkin' on the moon once upon a time, too."

"Sounds like something out of a science fiction novel."

"Hey, if anyone could do it, it'd be Muraki, right? He's just crazy enough." Watari raised his brows. "And brilliant enough, unfortunately. So bear with me here. You can create an exact genetic duplicate of an organism by copyin' its DNA, right, so what's to say you can't create an exact duplicate of a person's soul by copyin' the permanent connections, the memory traces, in his or her brain? After all, if there exists some material manifestation of the immortal soul, what the scientific realm calls personality, then it would be in the folds and synapses and transactions that we find within the mortal brain."

"Except that when you clone a living thing, the daughter is still a unique individual, a separate entity from the mother. If anything, cloning reinforces the law that there can never exist two of the exact same soul."

Watari opened his mouth to rebut, but thought better of it. He seemed more surprised than anything. "I concede the point. I didn't know you actually paid attention to my lunatic ravin's, Tsuzuki. You're smarter than you let on."

Tsuzuki beamed.

"I still say the theory's valid, though, even if it only explains how to make a zombie."

"Then what if the boy's soul really was stolen from Meifu." At Watari's vigorously shaking his head, Tsuzuki tried, "Isn't it possible with all the transactions made in the system every day, one anomaly like that might go unnoticed?"

"Highly improbable—"

"But isn't there a saying that the most improbable explanation must be the right one, when all other rational possibilities have been eliminated?"

"You've been readin' too many Father Brown mysteries."

"Holmes."

"Whatever."

Tsuzuki grinned. "Come on, Watari. I know you must be curious to get to the bottom of this, too."

And he also knew how the other's incessantly curious mind would not rest until he had found a solution to the problem. It was his one great weakness. Running his fingers crazily through his hair with a growl, Watari pushed his chair over to the nearest computer screen. "Damn you, Tsuzuki," he muttered, albeit good-naturedly, "you're gonna make a pushover of me, too!"

As he began typing away, Tsuzuki pulled a bench over from a nearby work table and parked it next to the scientist where he could watch the screen. "You realize what you're askin' me to do," Watari said as he worked, glancing at Tsuzuki occasionally out of the corner of his eye, "is against policy, don't you? The information regardin' the final destination of processed souls is strictly confidential."

"I thought Mother liked you."

"That's not the point. That don't mean I can just go wherever I please in the system." But Watari swallowed his frustration. "I'm not real excited about getting' caught hackin' into a restricted database, is all. There must be more appropriate channels you could go through."

"I don't have that kind of time," Tsuzuki told him. "If any of this comes back to you, though, I'll take full responsibility."

"That's very little reassurance." Watari trailed off as he successful entered the database and a query window popped up onto the screen. Copying Fujisawa's name and processing number from another window into the search field, Watari sent the inquiry off and the two waited as pages of data flashed rapidly across the screen.

The window returned telling them it had found no matches. "Huh. That's odd," Watari said. "Let me try another way. . . ."

After a couple more attempts it came back with an error message: ILLEGAL NAME/NAME NOT FOUND. CHECK NAME AND PROCESSING NUMBER AND RETRY QUERY.

Watari sat back. "I don't know what to tell you, Tsuzuki. I double checked the number and everything. Either your kid ain't in the system or someone doesn't want you accessin' his information."

"How do we know which one it is?"

"Nah-uh," Watari said at the pleading look the other predictably gave him. "You dragged me into it this far. Any more and I might as well start diggin' my own grave, figuratively speakin'. For all we know, Enma himself might have edited the kid's file."

"But don't you see?" Tsuzuki said as he stood. "That's what I have to find out! To eliminate the possibilities." He sighed. "You're a scientist, Watari—"

The other wagged his finger at him. "Not the scientist defense, again. When I say no, I mean no."

"That's a line from a song, Watari."

Watari frowned at him for a long moment before he finally conceded: "So it is. And while I hate to think I'm that predictable, the one thing I can't resist is a good challenge. I'll give you a jingle when I learn anything." At Tsuzuki's widening grin, he added quickly, "But you owe me for this one big time, Tsuzuki."

"Of course. Anything you want."

"Anything?"

Flashbacks of sex-switching and other various formula trials gone humiliatingly wrong flashed through Tsuzuki's mind, and he said with a grimace as he backed toward the door, "Well, almost anything."

-o-

Hisoka let out a deep breath as he opened his locker. It was only his second day of school but already it felt like a week or more had gone by. He didn't know how he had ever let the thought enter his mind that high school life was something to be _missed_. The press of teenage hormones, the academic stress, the constant anxiety of being judged by others that radiated off so many of his classmates. . . . It took all his effort to block out that background noise and concentrate on the investigation before him—and pay sufficient attention to lecture to make it look like he belonged there at the same time.

The final bell couldn't have come soon enough, he thought as he kicked off a slipper and slipped his foot back into his shoe. Coming here was not turning out to be as useful as he had thought. With one exception.

He spied Fujisawa across the way, bracing himself against the wall of lockers with one arm while he chatted up a couple of senior girls. From where he was, Hisoka could not hear what either party was saying, but the girls seemed to be buying into whatever it was by the enraptured looks in their eyes. From where Hisoka was, his upperclassman's smile looked almost natural, almost kind—but wasn't that just a facade?

Like Muraki's fair looks and gentle manner, that had charmed so many young women to their deaths?

Replacing the slippers, Hisoka grabbed his book bag and slammed his locker door. Fujisawa looked his way at the noise and excused himself from the girls.

"That was quite a look on your face," he all but purred when he came to Hisoka's side. "You should have seen yourself, how jealous you looked just then."

"That would make you so happy, wouldn't it?" Hisoka muttered back. He indicated the girls with his eyes. "They don't seem to know what you're capable of, but I do."

"Yeah? And what's that?"

"Blackmail, treason, assault. Rape." He glanced up and met the other's gaze. "Need I go on?"

Fujisawa's smile remained unchanged.

"But I never thought you'd add murder to that list. I didn't think you had it in you."

The other's smile broadened. "Ah. Then you do remember me."

"It came back to me." There were so many things Hisoka wanted to say about that—so many questions that remained unanswered, about Fujisawa's presence here, the fact that he had not changed physically—but some gut feeling told him now was not the time, and he had learned to listen to those. He said instead, lowering his voice, "Stay away from them, Fujisawa."

Fujisawa snorted at that. "You think I was interested in those girls? Heh. Don't you worry your pretty little head over them, Kurosaki. They can't give me what I want." His gaze flickered lazily over Hisoka's figure, and he dropped his voice to a low murmur. "_You_, on the other hand. . . ."

One thing to be said for Fujisawa, he did not have to stand close to make Hisoka uncomfortable. The intimacy in his words and his gaze, implying evil intentions with a silent eloquence that rivaled only Muraki's—more intimate even than that touch the day before—was enough. If anything, that was what unnerved Hisoka, not what Fujisawa might potentially do to him. He had had a twisted conscience before, but nowhere near what darkness Hisoka now sensed below his calm surface.

"And I suppose Hiragawa had what you wanted?" he asked. "Is this how you spoke to him, too? How you convinced him to go with you before you killed him?"

Fujisawa's smile dropped slightly and he glanced around them. Strange, he didn't seem at all worried that the other students might have heard Hisoka's accusation. Rather, he seemed almost embarrassed for Hisoka's sake. Even now his confidence and composure were impeccable. The similarities between the two kept on revealing themselves, Hisoka noted.

Fujisawa sighed. "Hiragawa was a sweet boy," he sad matter-of-factly. "A little too trusting for his own good, but you can't really fault a person for that, can you? If anything, I felt a little sorry for him, convincing himself his body's own natural desires were an abomination. Even I was like that once. But a little prodding in the right direction was all it took to undo all that. In a way, I guess, you could say I did him a favor."

"What happened to all his blood?"

"Guess."

Hisoka gritted his teeth. "And what were all the others? Just pieces in some sick little puzzle of yours designed to get me here? You killed them just for that?"

Fujisawa pondered his question for a moment, then shrugged. "Not exactly, though they certainly proved useful in that regard. Not as useful as I first thought but, after all, you are here, aren't you?" He tilted his head to better regard Hisoka, saying, "As for what it all means . . . well. That's for you to find out, isn't it? King Enma's elite."

Hisoka started. Then he knew about them, about him and Tsuzuki. He had known all along what they were. That meant, without a doubt. . . .

As though he could see the wheels turning in Hisoka's mind, Fujisawa flashed him another amused smile. "You're beginning to put the bigger picture together, I see."

"What are you doing here? How are you involved with Muraki—"

"Ah-ah-ah," Fujisawa scolded him in sing-song fashion. "One question at a time. You wouldn't want to spoil the fun all in one sitting, would you? Save something for next time."

"Next time?"

"Of course there will be a next time. We have to finish what we started four years ago, don't we?" Fujisawa raised his eyebrows as he slowly backed away from Hisoka.

That didn't make any sense. "We didn't start anything," Hisoka said after him.

"Maybe you and I didn't realize it at the time," the other said, putting a finger to his lips as though swearing the two of them to secrecy. "I was rather indisposed soon afterwards. But it was definitely started nonetheless."

Fujisawa left him no chance for rebuttal. He leaned back against the door and spun on his heels, practically bouncing out into the bright afternoon sunlight. He seemed to be in a particularly good mood, and Hisoka did not trust it one bit.

-o-

The police department hardly ever seemed very busy when Jun would drop by in the afternoon after school. Only when another victim had come in for the mysterious liver-taker case had he ever seen the reception room bustling with reporters and self-proclaimed witnesses eager to get in on the excitement. But Toshio's death had put a damper on some of that. The murder of a local teenager was not exactly something the media could get excited about with good conscience.

Jun bolstered his smile as he went up to the officer at the front desk. "Can I go up and see my dad?"

The officer waved him through without a pause, intent on what sounded like a personal phone call he was taking. They all knew him well enough by now—or rather they knew his father well enough—that that was all Jun needed to say to get through. Even with the high-profile cases of the last few weeks, theirs remained a fairly quiet city. And no one had any reason to doubt Inoue Masao's son.

Jun took the elevator up to the fifth floor. He found his father talking to someone at their desk, waving a file in his hand while he talked. "Hey, pops!" Jun called to him across the room when it looked like the conversation was wrapping up. His father and the other detective exchanged a few more words before the former headed over.

He clapped one hand heartily on Jun's shoulder when he approached. "Jun," he said, "whatcha doing here?"

"Just thought I'd drop by and see if you'd be coming home for dinner tonight." Jun was aware of how different the two of them appeared. His father's friends all said it, teasing them and wondering where Jun got the good looks. Already, at sixteen, he was gaining on his rather stout father in height, and with his more angular appearance and hair hanging over his forehead could not have been further from Inoue's blunt features and crew cut. Only when they smiled, as they were doing now, could anyone tell without a doubt they were father and son. "Mom was going to make curry."

"Uh-huh. Trying to lure me home by my stomach, is that the plot? I'm onto your guys' game."

Jun chuckled. But there must have been something forced about it, because his father sobered and asked him, "You sure you're all right, Jun? I mean, about your classmate—"

"Yeah," Jun was quick to say. But he didn't feel like maintaining the smile. "I mean, I'm getting there. But I can't help feeling—"

"There's no way you could have predicted something like this," his father told him firmly. "You can't keep asking yourself 'what if I had done this or that differently?' It won't make it any better, believe me. Besides, I thought he was the one who had stopped talking to you."

Jun nodded, even though that was little consolation. When he looked up, a detective was approaching the two of them whom he recognized as Asai. "Has there been any progress on his case?" Jun asked. After all, that was the real reason for this visit, even if he didn't want to admit it aloud.

His father rubbed the back of his neck. "Well. . . ."

"Sorry to butt in, Inoue," Asai began.

His father sighed. "Right." And he turned to Jun. "You remember Detective Asai, don't you, Jun? He and his partner are working Hiragawa's case and they'd like to ask you a few questions about him."

"Okay."

"We were told you and the victim were good friends," Asai said.

"Well, used to be," Jun corrected him as he followed the detective over to the desk space he shared with his partner, Imai. "We hadn't been close for a few years. I guess I knew him better than anybody, but he more or less kept to himself."

"May I ask why?"

The way Asai asked him, Jun knew he could be trusted not to judge, like the priest at confession. Maybe it came from having a kid of his own. That was why, of the two, Jun would rather be asked that question by him than by Imai.

However, "It's personal."

"Look, I understand what you're going through right now and all," Imai spoke up, though Jun wasn't sure he had the slightest idea, "but if it's anything that could remotely help us solve this case—"

"I don't see why it would. You guys are already supposing he was attacked by some pervert, right? Doesn't that tell you enough?"

The two detectives exchanged glances at his frustration. Asai shrugged, and Imai picked up a glossy photograph from his papers with a sigh. "We'd like you to take a look at this freeze-frame," he said as he extended it toward Jun. "It was taken from the surveillance video of the Taito game center downtown on the day Hiragawa was killed. Do you recognize the boy who was with him? He goes to your school, right? He was wearing the same uniform as your friend. You can tell us that much, can't you?"

Jun started. He hadn't been aware of this detail. He looked down at the glossy in his hand, where Toshio's head could just be seen behind the molded plastic chair of the game machine. Somehow it didn't seem real, seeing his departed classmate like that, more like a frame from a movie than something that had really happened. His gaze slid to the boy standing beside his old friend. "That's Fujisawa. . . ."

Imai scribbled something down. "A classmate of yours?" Asai asked gently.

"Yeah. In the third year. Three-C." He looked up at the detectives. "What was he doing with Toshio?"

Asai didn't answer. "Now, you're positive that's him? You didn't look very long."

"I'm sure of it. Why? Is he a suspect?"

"Thank you, Jun, we appreciate this. That's all we have to ask you at this time—"

"Wait a second!" Jun raised his voice. "Is he the guy who killed Toshio?"

"We're not making any assumptions at this time," Imai told him sternly. "We're merely trying to establish a timeline of the victim's last hours, here. All we know at this point is that he went to the game center with this boy after school. That's all."

But that was little reassurance to Jun, who could only think of how he should have known something was up with the new student in 3-C. He had seen Toshio looking at Fujisawa with stars in his eyes and said nothing, just looked the other way. And if it turned out now that Jun could have done something about it all along. . . . Some friend he had been.

-o-

"Fujisawa N— of three-C, huh?" the principal repeated to himself as he got up to open the file cabinet on the side of the room. "He's not in any trouble, is he?"

Asai and Imai exchanged glances. "Not at this time," the former said. "We'd just like to ask him a few questions about his whereabouts the day his classmate was murdered."

The principal hummed as he nodded, his fingers rifling through various students' folders with practiced dexterity, as though every action were a performance in and of itself. "Class has already been out for a couple of hours," he said as he glanced at them out of the corner of his eye. "I very much doubt you'll find him on campus at this time. Maybe you should come by first thing in the morning."

"His file should include a home address. We can question him there at our leisure."

That seemed to satisfy the principal, a man with the patient manner of a monk who nonetheless looked the bureaucratic tight-wad everything else indicated he should be. Imai glanced around the office while they waited, at the credentials framed and mounted on the wall along with a photograph of former prime minister Nakasone, and at the pristine wooden desk in front of the window. Despite the lack of funding the public schools complained about, this institution seemed to be doing well for itself, even if it was stuck in the 1980s. Some leather-bound school records were situated in the bookshelves on the other side of the room interspersed with a few awards arranged in a tastelessly exact fashion. The only indication at all that they were in a Catholic institution was the small crucifix mounted on the wall above the file cabinets, and a small white china statuette of the Virgin Mary that sat on top of them.

"Here we are," the principal said, sliding the file cabinet drawer closed and calling Imai's attention back to the investigation at hand. "Fujisawa's record. Not too thick, as you can see. He just transferred here about a month ago."

About the time the first victim missing his liver turned up, Imai thought as he took the file proffered him. He opened it up to the first page, Asai looking over his shoulder as he did so.

"That's definitely the guy on our video footage," his partner murmured, nodding at the headshot attached to the front page. "Inoue's boy was right."

"Under parent or guardian you have listed a Mr. . . . Satomi," Imai said, glancing up. "Was Fujisawa adopted?"

The principal shrugged. "I would assume so."

Asai glared at him—like he tended to do when he sensed something fishy. "You never met him?"

"We'd like to get a copy of this for our records," Imai said before the other could form an answer.

"Sure."

"Right away, if you don't mind. We're in something of a hurry."

-o-

The house that belonged to Satomi looked on the surface like any other that dotted this middle-class neighborhood: echoes of the prairie style in its narrow, two-storey facade, a clean concrete walk with shallow stairs leading from the gate to the front patio. Yet there was something dark about the air surrounding this particular property. The building and small yard looked fairly well-kept, but there remained something intangible about the place, something more than just the dark windows and impenetrable silence, that gave Imai the feeling it had not been lived in—really lived in—for quite some time.

He suppressed a shiver as he looked up at the second-storey windows. The evenings were beginning to get cool, but that wasn't his reason. He and Asai had given up knocking on the front door some time ago. The Fujisawa kid wasn't home, and neither was Satomi, but nothing would have made Imai happier then than having a warrant in hand. The house was hiding something—that much his gut told him—and he wanted to know what.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll tell him," Asai was saying into his cell phone as he returned to Imai. He flipped his phone shut, telling his partner, "That was the chief. He wanted me to relay to you what they pulled down from Kyoto on the guy who owns this place. A Dr. Satomi?"

"Doctor? That's news to me. What about him?"

Asai shot him a look as though asking him if he was sure he really wanted to hear it. "Apparently he died back in the fall of ninety-eight. He had been teaching at a private school up in Kyoto when his body was discovered on a sandbar beneath a bridge. The local police assumed he committed suicide."

"Then who's been keeping the house all this time? Someone must have lived here, or at least come by once in a while to clean the place up."

Asai shrugged. "I had them pull up any information on the Fujisawa kid as well, thinking he might have had priors, a bad school record—anything that might point to a history of violent behavior. Well, I wasn't expecting the violent behavior to have been carried out _against_ him. He's deceased, as well. He was one of the victims in that case in Nagasaki you had mentioned—the one involving the pervy teacher at that Catholic school."

"But that just can't be," Imai shook his head. "We've got him on tape, and we have someone who positively ID-ed him, not to mention the school he's supposedly attending actually has a record of him being there, _in class._"

"I don't know what to tell you." Asai lowered his voice. "The Fujisawa we're looking for sustained fatal lacerations to his head and body. There's no way anyone could have survived what happened to him."

"It isn't possible we could be dealing with an impostor, is it?"

Asai sighed. "Anything's possible, but. . . ."

There was something else. Imai could just see it in his partner's body language. "What? Tell me it's something positive."

"Well, speaking of impostors, I followed the lead on this Terazuma character as well—the detective going around with whoever it was pretending to be you?"

"And?"

"It turns out he was a real cop. Back in the 'eighties." Imai's spirits sank; he knew what was coming before his partner even said it: "He's been dead for over a decade."

"_Namu amida butsu_," Imai swore under his breath. He glanced up at the darkened windows of a dead man's house, silently reflecting the flashing lights of the patrol cars. "What the hell is going on here?"

-o-

It was starting to get dark when Fujisawa began heading back to the house he had shared with Muraki these past few months. Another clear day was turning into a dramatic evening, with the setting sun seeming to set the sky and the residential neighborhoods on fire. It was the kind of afternoon that really got the blood flowing, but the better part of his had been spent being followed around by that Kurosaki kid.

Which didn't particularly bother him. It wasn't like he had anything naughty planned. If anything he found it merely unfortunate he couldn't turn around and acknowledge the boy tailing him. Then maybe he could have had some real fun.

But he knew it was more prudent not to let the boy think he was onto him. Instead, there had been a voyeuristic quality to his meandering through Shimotori, browsing book and CD titles and fitting in a few rounds of Pop'N Music at the game center and pretending to study over a bubble tea—a feeling like someone was reading over his shoulder, scrutinizing every intimate detail of his afternoon. It was actually quite flattering. He had been glad when he finally lost Kurosaki in a department store, though; the game of cat and mouse began to get old after a while.

Now, as he turned the corner down his street, he could finally say there was no one following him and what should he find but cop cars parked outside his house with lights flashing.

Fujisawa had to curse his luck. This was exactly what Muraki had warned him against—the exact reason he had been forced to put this game with their quarry on fast-forward to begin with. Turned out the local authorities were quicker than he'd given them credit for. He stepped back behind the wall that surrounded the house on the corner and crouched down. He pulled the earbuds of his mini-disc player out of his ears and gently put his book bag down on the pavement, and peered around the corner at the place he had thought of as home just that morning. All of a sudden, he couldn't quite feel that way anymore.

Uniformed officers were all over the property, treading on the small patch of lawn beside the front walk, peering through the windows into the dark interior to see if anyone was home. A couple of plainclothes detectives stood beside the vehicles, making notes and talking on their cell phones.

Fujisawa didn't care about any of that. He looked around for Muraki, but could not spot his unmistakable mop of silver hair anywhere. Maybe that was a good sign. Maybe he was staying late at the school like he sometimes did.

In any case, there was no way Fujisawa was sticking around here, waiting to get caught and hauled downtown. If that happened, he knew he couldn't count on Muraki to bail him out. The doctor had made that abundantly clear. There would be no extra chances. It would be game over. So Fujisawa picked up his school bag again and began walking quickly in the opposite direction.

He took a longer way back to school, one that led him through the park where he could slow his pace and collect his thoughts, and buy some time until the sun to go down. Twilight was deepening faster this time of year, and his shadow was already long and faint against the pavement when he found himself by the tennis courts and swimming pool behind Sacred Heart Academy.

Fujisawa slipped in the back door by the gym, not bothering to muffle the sound of the door slamming shut. The various teams who used the gym for practice late into the afternoon were already gone, only the janitors left to patrol the halls. And what did he care if he ran into one of them, he thought derisively as he rounded the corner into the stairwell leading down to the basement level.

Muraki wasn't in his office. Nor was his coat on its hangar. Fujisawa sprinted back outside, across the parking lot to the church that stood on the far edge of the school grounds. He vaguely remembered Muraki saying something about using it as a sanctuary if he ever ran into trouble, since the doors were open all day and night. Fujisawa never expected the building, imposing in the light of day, could seem as comforting as it did now. But, again, no Muraki. He checked the shrine off the nave to no avail, and gave up after a cursory search of the parish grounds, so dark under the low branches of the closely planted ginkgo trees that a statue of St. Francis made him jump in false alarm.

The low ceiling and close walls of the school's halls were comforting in their familiarity when Fujisawa returned to them. "Sensei?" he called out as he moved from one classroom or office to another. The sense of deja vu they aroused, the nebulous memories of another school the inspirational messages and events fliers and posted test scores evoked, soothed his rattled nerves. Never could he remember experiencing such a feeling of disorientation and abandonment as he did now without Muraki's guidance. He felt like a child who'd lost his mother in a department store. But even as a child, being alone never bothered Fujisawa like this. Strange how dependent he had become on the doctor in past few years, and how unlike him that was.

But, after all, couldn't it be said that he owed Muraki everything?

The library at the end of the hall beckoned, its double doors thrown open and its interior dark, but for a few dim fluorescents lighting up the front desk. Fujisawa jogged toward it, then stopped at the threshold and called out again. His voice resonated strangely under the library's vaulted ceiling. Fujisawa closed the doors behind him and stepped deeper into the interior. He glanced down isle after isle of books, conscious the entire time of his footsteps echoing on the parquet, telling anyone who might be listening his exact location at any time. "Muraki-sensei?" The name took on a life of its own in the musty air of the room, as if being murmured back to him by the hundreds upon thousands of books.

"No need to raise your voice, Fujisawa," came the answer from the other side of the nearest bookshelf. "I could hear you coming down the hall."

Fujisawa started, heart hammering. He rounded the corner to see a figure in white studying the spines of the books, the usual brightness that surrounded him barely dampened by the gloom of the building.

"I was just marveling at the thoroughness of this academy's catalog," Muraki said as though Fujisawa were the slightest bit interested. He drew out one book with his index finger, as leisurely as one might draw a sash off a lover. "The _Galerie der Sippurim_, in a reputable translation and unabridged. It's a pleasure to find it here, to say the least."

Fujisawa couldn't care less. Hardly able to contain his relief, he strode toward the doctor and thrust his arms under Muraki's, embracing him like his personal anchor and pressing his face against Muraki's shoulder. He shut his eyes tight.

Muraki's body tightened in momentary surprise beneath him. "My, what's this for?" Fujisawa could hear the smile in his voice.

"I was worried," he mumbled against the doctor's shirt. "I couldn't find you anywhere."

"Is that right?"

"The police were at your house."

"I thought as much. I noticed a couple of detectives come by earlier and thought it wisest to stay close by and out of sight."

"For a moment there I thought they might've taken you."

As he pulled away, Muraki smiled down at him through his glasses. "Taken me? And that frightened you, Fujisawa?" He chuckled softly. "What would they do to me? As I keep reminding you, it is your own well-being you should be concerned about. If anything, _you_ would be the one they would want, not I. I did not kill those men."

The way he said so chilled Fujisawa, as though he were condemning the boy. "But I had to do it. That's what you told me—"

"I'm afraid they would not see things your way. In any case, I don't want you to worry about it. I won't let anything happen to you if I can help it. That much I guarantee. There is still so much to do."

That little bit of reassurance coaxed a confession from the boy: "I didn't know what I'd do if I had lost you."

Muraki lowered his eyes and nodded at that. At moments like these, Fujisawa couldn't escape the suspicion the man was laughing at him inside, even while he desperately desired the warmth of Muraki's almost maternal smile. "Of course you didn't," the doctor said tenderly, stroking and lightly gripping the hair that fell over the nape of Fujisawa's neck.

"Where are we supposed to go now? We can't go back to that house."

"No," Muraki concurred, "and you cannot stay here anymore, either."

Fujisawa knitted his brows. "What do you mean? You mean I can't come to class? But Kurosaki—"

"You can deal with him at a more appropriate time, can't you?" Muraki pushed the book into Fujisawa's hands. "After all, you both have all the time in the world."

"But, Sensei—"

"I have told you before. I will take care of everything. Trust me."

Giving Fujisawa's hair a playful tug, Muraki released the boy and strode past him. A part of Fujisawa mourned the loss of his touch, however temporary it was. I do trust you, he wanted to say, but somehow it didn't seem necessary. He glanced down at the book that had been put in his hands instead. A generic-looking Star of David pressed in gold into the cover told foreign readers unfamiliar with the title what to expect inside. For his part, Fujisawa had to wonder what Muraki wanted with a collection of old Jewish folktales.

-o-

She had just finished with her bath and secured the robe around her waist when the phone rang. Just as though it had been waiting for her to emerge.

She stepped out into the main room of her hotel suite, the city lights sparkling in the dark outside the window, and picked up the receiver. She held it to her ear a full second before answering: "Komatsu speaking."

"You're still using your late husband's name, I see. Kiyoko."

She knew that voice. It sent a shiver down her spine despite the warmth of her bath. "Dr. Muraki."

"It's been a long time."

"Not long enough, if you want my opinion. I thought you were dead."

He seemed amused by that. "So did I, for a time. Though I can't say the rumors of my death were that exaggerated." She could see his malicious smile as clearly as if she had last seen him yesterday. "Does it disappoint you to hear I'm still alive? It's unfortunate, then, but I have a favor to ask of you."

"Well, isn't this rich?" Kiyoko put one hand on her hip as she turned to face the window. She half wondered if she might see him outside watching her, even on this floor, like a night demon shopping for blood. "I never imagined the esteemed doctor would be coming to me for such a thing. I was under the impression you thought the likes of me beneath you."

However, he wouldn't rise to the challenge of her sarcasm. "I'm glad to hear you're still residing at this address, at least for the meantime."

"Are you in Kumamoto as well?"

"I'm sorry. I neglected to inform you. I've taken up a temporary position as a nurse at a local high school. It just so happens that during my time there I've run across a boy who has fallen under some troublesome circumstances."

"What kind of troublesome—"

"I'd have to ask you not to ask," Muraki was quick to cut her off. "He's something of a fugitive and I think it best in the long run for all parties involved the less you know about the particulars. I do hope you understand."

The way he phrased it, Kiyoko believed she could. She was no stranger to fugitives. In her past life, girls had come running to _her_ for advice and mediation when they were mistreated by those they trusted, not knowing where to spend the night, afraid to go to the police. With Muraki, she knew well enough to harbor some suspicion. But on the other hand, if the boy really needed help. . . .

That was something she could decide once she had met him. "Let me guess. He needs a place to stay."

"Your suite must be more than comfortable enough for two people."

"And where do you expect him to sleep?"

"You have a davenport, don't you?" When she hesitated to answer, he continued tentatively, "Of course, if you're concerned what high society will say about a widow sharing her rooms with an adolescent boy—"

"Not at all." Funny how he knew just what to say to bring the nonconformist out of her. She relented. "You may bring the boy by, but I make no promises over the phone."

"I understand," the other replied graciously. "And I do sincerely appreciate this. Mibu Kaede-san."

-o-

The silence was deafening in the empty throne room in which the souls of the deceased appeared to face judgment by Enma himself. The demon king was retired behind the screens now, however, the outer chamber occupied only by its two ever-present guards, great, hulking demonic figures neither entirely avian nor humanoid—leaving Konoe otherwise alone with nothing to separate him from the mirrors that decorated the back of the gold and crimson throne. The mirrors that reflected the sins of the person who gazed into them.

It was for that reason more than reasons of propriety that Konoe had learned to keep his eyes downcast when he entered the chamber for these rare, private meetings. And it was for that reason that he failed to notice the other come up from behind him until he spoke.

"What is this rumor I hear," came his low, smooth voice—as smooth and dark as a fine red wine, "that your shinigami have been hacking into my classified databases, Chief Konoe?"

Konoe looked over at the newcomer, taking in the figure of a tall, well-shaped man in his prime, his frame completely covered by Heian court attire—even his hands hidden beneath the hems of his long sleeves, his dark brown hair just peeking out from underneath a black hat. "I'm surprised you would actually deign to show yourself here in the flesh, so to speak, Count," Konoe said amiably enough as the other kneeled beside him.

The count of the Castle of Candles smiled—or, rather, the noh mask that covered all but the very edges of his face _seemed_ to smile in the low light. When he lifted his face to nod in the direction of the throne, it disappeared, and his expression was molded into something else. "I don't have quite as much to hide in this company as I do some others," he said. "What about yourself?"

"If you're referring to my employees' breach of protocol, I was only just made aware of it. I thought that was the reason I was called here tonight." Konoe turned slightly to the count. "I was not aware you would be here as well. If you've come about their discipline—"

"I have no desire to see either of them disciplined," the count said quickly. "I very much doubt that would be high on Lord Enma's list of priorities either—"

"Now you presume to know what I consider a priority, Count?" a new voice echoed from the other side of the screen behind the throne. It carried throughout the chamber in low waves, like the rumbling of a tremor deep underground, ominous but not immediately threatening.

It made the count bow nonetheless. "Forgive me, your honor."

Konoe followed suit.

"Nevertheless, you are correct," Enma resumed. "I will overlook this minor infraction. After all, it is a harmless one which hurts no one. It should not prove detrimental to the current investigation of Tsuzuki and Kurosaki, nor will it compromise any further case. There is nothing that Watari could uncover for them that they have not suspected already."

"But his search did reveal that a soul was missing from our system," the count said. "Even I am at a loss as to how this could have happened, not to mention how it could have happened without our being aware."

"Perhaps Muraki Kazutaka is a more powerful creature than even I anticipated," Enma said as though to himself. "Or perhaps he is merely a more connected creature. It is possible he has had inside help on this and other occasions, someone close to me who would betray me for his promises."

Something hard entered the demon king's voice that made Konoe bristle. Apparently the count was not immune either. "Your honor," he said, suddenly quite humble, "I hope you don't mean to suggest . . . My lord, I would never—"

"I am intimating nothing, Count. You have given me no reason to doubt your loyalty to Meifu."

"If anything," said a more grating voice, "his loyalty is all too strong. The only question is, is it loyalty to his august lord, or to the one who serves him—the one with the strange eyes?"

It was one of two severed heads who had spoken. They sat on either side of the dais, where they appeared to be no more than decorations on the throne until they opened their thick lips to speak, or swiveled their grotesquely bulging eyes: Miru-me, seer of one's most hidden sins, and Kagu-hana, the one who had spoken, who smelled out even the slightest of the heart's offenses. "His mask is not all that is impenetrable," Miru-me now said. "However, the same cannot be said for the chief of the shinigami, who repeats his sins even now because his great king commands it."

"What is the meaning of this, my lord?" the count said with as much ire as he dared in Enma's company. "Have you summoned Chief Konoe and I here only to have us stand judgment before these stinking, rotting relics like common mortal souls for your amusement? Either dismiss them or dismiss us, my lord, but do not play your games with us in the midst of this grave situation."

Konoe held his breath at the other's temerity. But Enma only laughed. At least, the rippling sound that resonated through the chamber seemed to Konoe to be laughter. It reminded the elder shinigami just how cruel his employer could be, if the fancy struck him to be. He allowed his gaze to drift to and linger on the figure kneeling in shadow behind the woven screen. Distorted by the weave, the demon king's profile appeared neither beautiful nor horrendous, neither young nor old—at once human and demon, harsh and gentle—merely a roughly-defined suggestion that commanded, if nothing else, unshakable awe.

"Do not tempt Miru-me and Kagu-hana with rash thoughts," Enma said, "and they will behave themselves."

Behind the screen, his shadowy form seemed to sober, and he began again, "As for Muraki Kazutaka and his accomplice. . . . Hubris must run deep in that family. I often wonder if Yukitaka knew just what he was unleashing upon us when he brought that creature into this world. This is not the first time that man has sought to thwart my plans for Tsuzuki, and each time it seems he only comes closer to achieving his final goals. I, however, refuse to stand by and allow his plans to unfold, while he makes a mockery of this institution with his undead abomination.

"Muraki must be stopped, Konoe," his raised voice suddenly boomed like the beat of a taiko drum in the chamber. "Before he tries to awaken Tsuzuki again, we must put an end to him, once and for all."

"And how do you propose the shinigami do that, your honor?" said the count. "They have failed every time before."

"That has been my greatest concern as well," Konoe added quickly. "I was meaning to ask, my lord, why you have expressly assigned Tsuzuki to this case."

"You question my judgment in putting him in charge of this investigation, Konoe, or my going over your head?"

"Er, the former, my lord," Konoe said carefully. "It's only that in the living world, a detective would be removed from an investigation if he were personally involved, whether his emotions proved to be interfering with his efficiency or not. I know this is not the world of the living, yet I wonder why you would keep him on this case knowing it will bring him in contact with Muraki again."

"Rather than assign a more objective pair to the doctor's disposal, you mean," Enma said. "The answer to that is simple. In order to catch that creature we must draw him out; and in order to draw him out we must deliver what he asks for, which happens to be Tsuzuki."

The count suppressed a growl of frustration beside Konoe. "This is all a game to you—to both of you, Dr. Muraki and the _great_ King Enma. He is nothing but a pawn in both your designs."

"Oh, no, Count," the demon king said softly—ominously. "He is so much more important than that."

But why, Konoe yearned so badly to ask. If only he knew he would receive a straight answer. Then again, perhaps the truth would be something he did not want to hear—whether the truth about Tsuzuki, or the truth about himself. Have I really been protecting him all this time, Konoe wondered deep in his heart, or merely deluding myself while I save him for a greater evil? But what choice do I really have?

"The Kurosaki boy has at least grown stronger since he first came to us," Enma continued as though to himself. "So much stronger. He is no longer so afraid, as his partner is, of what lies within himself, even if he does not yet know how to harness it. I am confident he will know what to do about Muraki, if only for his partner's sake."

If that were the case, though, then Enma had more confidence in the pair than Konoe. It was not that he doubted their strength, or their loyalty to one another. However. . . . He glanced over at the count out of the corner of his eyes, but was able to catch no change nor any emotion whatsoever in the man's masked countenance. It only left him feeling more alone and exposed before those great mirrors in the throne.

"Konoe," Enma said gently, shaking the chief out of his reverie, "please inform the boy for me that his timing is of the essence. I want this case brought to a close, immediately."

* * *

Japanese language note: "Namu amida butsu," or the _nenbutsu_, roughly translates to "I take refuge in Amida Buddha" and is the core mantra of Pure-Land Buddhism. Here the character is taking Buddha's name in vain and using it as an exclamation, kind of like how one might swear "Holy mother of God"—but even then, I think, both also serve to give a person a sense of comfort in the face of uncertainty.

"When I say no, I mean no" is in fact a line from an actual song. "Yadane ttara yadane" became a catchphrase in Japan after the 2000 release of the hit single "Hakone Hachi-ri no Hanjiro" by Hikawa Kiyoshi.


	5. The fairest one of all

The classroom of 2-C was abuzz with whispered rumor and elevated emotion. Even the teacher seemed preoccupied with concern for his colleague in the third-year class, whose students had been under the scrutiny of the local police all morning, taken aside one by one for questioning while their classmates paced and waited uncomfortably in the hall. No one was really sure what was going on, but one name among all the others kept coming up: Fujisawa. He hadn't shown up for class that morning. In fact, no one had seen him at all since yesterday afternoon.

That wasn't good. To Hisoka, that news was like a pronouncement of his failure. He had had Fujisawa in his sights just hours before he disappeared. If only he had tailed a little closer, a little better, maybe his and Tsuzuki's prime suspect wouldn't be missing at the moment.

Then again, of course, maybe there was nothing Hisoka would have been able to do about it.

And meanwhile, the police were catching up. He could practically hear Tsuzuki: they were going to ruin everything. Maybe they already had. Maybe that's why they were here, and Fujisawa wasn't.

Hisoka glanced over at Jun. Usually the other boy couldn't keep still, unable to resist leaning over to one classmate or another to ask a question or laugh at something said. At very least, Hisoka had never seen him without a smile on his face, even if he had only known Jun a few days (but, in his defense, what harrowing days those must have been). Today, however, he made hardly any effort to acknowledge anyone, merely leaning over his arms crossed on the desk, his face unreadable, staring at the desk's top and letting the murmurs of others wash over him.

The classroom doors slid open and 3-C's homeroom teacher showed his face. "Kurosaki Hisoka?" he called in the sudden silence that descended.

It took a second before Hisoka realized his name had been called, and remembered he was not nearly as invisible as he felt among these living teenagers. The other kids' staring was what did it for him. "Here," he said quickly, and stood to go to the door, all too conscious of the dozens of pairs of eyes that followed him.

"The detectives want to speak to you for a few minutes," the teacher told him in a low voice when Hisoka reached him.

"Speak to me? Why?"

"You'll have to ask them."

It wasn't like he had a choice; but Hisoka dreaded the encounter with every fiber of his being. Here came the part where he would have to lie his ass off, and though he had every confidence in his poker face, he wasn't so sure about his ability to bluff convincingly about the rest. He looked over his shoulder at Jun before he followed the third-year teacher, and for a moment caught a look of utter surprise and guilt and suspicion on his acquaintance's face before Jun turned away.

The only thing he dreaded more than the detectives' questioning was explaining it all to that boy when he was done.

He couldn't have been more relieved when the school day finally ended. The chief wanted him and Tsuzuki to report back to Meifu on their progress, and Hisoka found himself actually eager to return to the familiarity of work and the eternal quiet of the underworld, however temporarily.

"You got called in by the police for questioning?" was Tsuzuki's first question, naturally, when they met in their office. "What was that like?"

"Not pleasant," Hisoka told him indifferently. "Apparently I was the last one to see Fujisawa before he disappeared, or so a couple of girls in his class told the detectives when they were interviewed."

"Sorry to have put you in the hot seat."

Hisoka turned to his partner. "Why? There's nothing you could have done about it." He shoved his hands down his trousers' pockets, scrunching his shoulders in something of a shrug as he added, "Besides, I guess the way things turned out I was at least able to meet our competition on this case."

"Yeah?"

"They kind of reminded me of you and Terazuma."

"You're . . . you're kidding, right?" Tsuzuki coughed beside him. "_I_ didn't get that impression. . . ."

But Hisoka ignored it. "And it was somewhat reassuring to realize they really had no clue what was going on. So far, it seems, they've been more lucky than good."

"I'm glad to hear that."

"Yeah, but they _are_ good." He was silent for a moment before saying suddenly, his voice softer, "I'm sorry I lost track of Fujisawa, Tsuzuki—"

But Tsuzuki was waving his apology off before he could even finish. "That wasn't your fault. You can't control what he does, or what the police decide to do—unless you and I go back to the station and steal those detectives' badges again. I'm serious; just say the word, I'll do it."

Hisoka admired his attempt at humor, but the smile was brittle on his lips. "But I still can't help feeling we're missing something. We're playing this game already, Tsuzuki, we're neck-deep in it, but we don't know all the rules. It's like we're moving around a chess board but we don't really know where we're supposed to move or why: we can't see the whole board yet. If we had that much, maybe everything else would fall into place."

"I want to return to the police station while you're in class tomorrow," Tsuzuki said as they arrived outside the chief's door. His brows knitted, it was clear to Hisoka when he was taking this with utter seriousness. "See what they've uncovered. Maybe it will give us a new perspective. I mean, why reinvent the wheel?"

"And you won't steal anything this time?" Hisoka said wryly.

"Cross my heart and hope to die."

Tsuzuki pushed open the door. But where they expected to see the lined face of Chief Konoe sitting behind his desk, they were met with Tatsumi's glasses instead.

Tsuzuki made no effort to hide his puzzlement. His shoulders slumped. "Tatsumi . . . You're still here?"

"Chief Konoe remains out for the time being. I told him I'd take your report for him." When the other two made no effort to move past the threshold, Tatsumi waved, "Well? Come on in. I won't bite."

An ironic choice of words, given his tendency to overdo things when handed the reigns. At any other time. Hisoka had to ask: "Where did the chief go anyway?"

"Yeah," said Tsuzuki, "is his back giving him problems again?"

Hisoka mentally cursed his partner. Despite his eighty years of experience as a detective of his own sorts in the Summons Division, he didn't always know how to ask the right questions. It allowed Tatsumi, momentarily taken aback for an answer, to get away with a smile and an ambiguous, "Something like that."

Which only aroused Hisoka's suspicions even more. For such a sensitive case, the chief had been absent for an awful long time. . . .

"In any case," Tatsumi added, "I'm eager to hear your progress on this investigation."

Over the next half hour or so, the two told him what had happened since finding Fujisawa at the Sacred Heart Academy. Tatsumi only interrupted them a few times to clarify, as well as to chide Tsuzuki for leaving out the part about his and Watari's little stroll through the system's classified files. "You heard about that?" Tsuzuki asked with a wince; but if anything it seemed strange to Hisoka how little Tatsumi or the chief—but especially the former—cared that the two had done something against regulations again. Something was weighing heavily on the secretary's mind; that much Hisoka knew with certainty.

It finally came out when they got up to leave. Also rising from behind the desk, Tatsumi stopped Hisoka, telling him, "I'd like to speak with you privately, if you don't mind."

Tsuzuki paused in the doorway. He had heard the words, but by the concern on his face . . . Maybe he thought they were going to talk about him. It wouldn't be the first time that happened. "Go on without me," Hisoka said. "This should only take a second."

When the door had closed behind Tsuzuki, Tatsumi sat on the edge of the desk with a sigh. "I'm sorry to put this burden on you, Kurosaki, but there's more to this than I feel comfortable saying in front of Tsuzuki."

Considering how close his partner and the secretary were, that seemed to be saying a lot. "It's about him, isn't it?" Hisoka said, dropping his voice and his gaze.

"No. At least, not entirely. I guess . . ."

Tatsumi closed his eyes for a moment and started over. "The chief wanted me to relate to you direct orders from King Enma," he said gentler. "He wants this case closed immediately."

"We're working as fast as we can with what we've got—"

"Apparently Enma thinks you could be doing it faster."

"Why couldn't he tell us himself?"

"I would rather you didn't ask me questions like that. That's up to him to explain, or not. What's important you know is that he's concerned about Tsuzuki's involvement in his case. We all are, Kurosaki." He never sounded so weary as he did then, but he pressed on: "Kyoto is never far from our minds anymore. When we thought Muraki was dead, Enma and all of Meifu were able to breathe a little easier knowing a disaster had been narrowly avoided. But now that he seems to be back—"

"We don't actually have proof of that. Neither of us has seen him."

"Do you mean to tell me that you and Tsuzuki suspect his involvement in this case to be indirect, postmortem?"

Hisoka lowered his eyes. "No," he admitted. "That isn't what our instincts tell us at all."

"I only wish it were the case that the doctor was dead," Tatsumi said as though to himself. "As it stands, there appears to be no doubt he will try to finish what he failed to do four years ago."

"What he failed to do? But his brother's body—what was left of it—was destroyed."

"But as long as the two of them remain, I'm afraid Muraki will never let it go."

The two of them? . . . "I don't understand. I thought his obsession with Tsuzuki was . . . well, just that."

Tatsumi avoided his eyes. He was struggling with what to say and how to say it. "He's not the only one who wants Tsuzuki for his own purpose," he settled for.

"Ashtaroth," Hisoka muttered the first name that came to mind.

It was the name of the prince of Hell under whom both Surgatanus and Focalor had served—until they broke his own commandments for conduct with humans and were destroyed by Tsuzuki and his shikigami, thereby passing their positions, however involuntarily, to him. That was over four years ago, and with Hell's silence on the matter since then they had almost forgotten that, for all intents and purposes, Tsuzuki did indeed occupy a strong position in their hierarchy under Ashtaroth's jurisdiction.

Hisoka had almost been able to forget. Until now. Until Fujisawa came back.

Tatsumi looked up, mildly surprised. He seemed as though he were about to say something on that point, but changed his mind. "Well, you understand the gist of it."

He pushed himself back to his feet slowly, and the fatigue in that action, not so much physical as something much deeper, made him seem suddenly so much older to Hisoka than his twenty-nine-year-old body conveyed. He made a move to approach Hisoka, as though to impart on him the reassurance of the warmth of a human hand on his shoulder, but hesitated too long and the moment to do so passed. He went back around to the back of the desk, but did not sit.

"King Enma is counting on you, Kurosaki," he said with uncharacteristic frankness that Hisoka could not ignore. "I'm counting on you as well. I wouldn't be able to bear seeing him slip into that abyss again, in part because I know I'm not strong enough to pull him back out of it. I never have been. At the same time, I know it isn't fair to ask you to carry this burden alone, but . . . to put it simply, none of us can reach Tsuzuki like you can. If anyone can save him from his past, it's you."

"I . . . I'm afraid I don't know what you mean," Hisoka said.

But Tatsumi pretended not to hear. "Please remember that, Kurosaki. It may be your greatest weapon against Muraki."

—o—

At forty-one, Kiyoko was still a very stunning woman. If anything, her beauty had only increased as she matured. The married life that was so cruel to so many women had been nothing but kind to her, who had known such highs and lows early in her life, working in the Kokakurou and servicing its most privileged of clientele.

They had called her Kaede then, the very face of the ancient restaurant and its back-rooms business, an adopted daughter set to inherit the establishment in the stead of a son who had refused anything to do with it. They had touted her as a modern-day _tayuu_, the most powerful and mysterious of courtesans; and though their kind was long extinct except in the sterilized cultural heritage organizations, she had kept it alive gladly with her nightly performances in the Kokakurou: Making her grand entrance for those parties that could afford her time, a tower of crimson and gold and ebony silk brocade, kimono layered one atop the other, obi tied in front, nape exposed, the entire package surmounted by a fan of black, glossy hair wound with cords and dripping with pearls and combs and _kanzashi_ radiating down like the rays of the sun from Amaterasu's brow. And in between the most beautiful, the most severe oval face.

Men loved that. They loved everything that made her inaccessible because it made the dream of having her that much more impossible, that much grander. That much sweeter when their moment actually came. The least she could say was that they got their money's worth. Hers had been a complete package, a sharp wit and talent for strategic games in addition to the perfect body and intimate knowledge of just how to please a man that had made her name golden in the most private circles of the corporate elite. No doubt it was for that very reason that there had been such an uproar among that audience when she announced she was retiring from it all to become one man's wife.

She might as well have told them she was leaving to become a nun.

But some things never changed. No matter where she found herself in life, she had always taken care of this material body and kept her mind clear. Her charm and beauty were what kept her sane, what she clung to for purpose in life. Her light and supple skin, flat stomach and toned legs and firm breasts—if appreciating the perfection of her own body were vain, narcissistic, then as far as Kiyoko was concerned it was a society with that mentality that suffered.

At least the boy knew how to appreciate it. Fascinated was probably a better term for his reaction. He couldn't keep his hands off her. At any one moment, as he lay with her nearly naked in her bed, they caressed the curve of her waist and hips and back, or cupped her breasts or the column of her throat, while he pressed his lips wherever they happened to land, at once with wonder, reverence and a sense of having deserved this his whole life. She had to wonder if he was aware of the blasphemy this would have seemed in her past life, to give herself to a no one like him asking nothing in return.

The heavy curtains on the large windows shut out most of the bright morning sunlight, and the warmth that filtered through graced his back that was turned to them. He was quite a specimen himself, cutting a handsome and rakish figure in his school uniform. The softness in his bare shoulders and buttocks indicated to her that at very least he was eating well. But it was something more than that, something in his eyes and his manner and his voice that had quickened her breathing and opened her blood vessels like few men had been able to do in her life.

There was something different about him, twisted around somehow, something that reminded her somewhat of that man.

The boy didn't seem interested in joining with her. Instead he pulled himself up to whisper something in her ear. She could feel his grin as his lips brushed inadvertently against her skin. His request took Kiyoko momentarily aback, but she didn't feel much like refusing him. His was a short order to fill—personally revolting, but, after all, men had asked her for much more disgusting things than that once upon a time.

She let the hand trailing over the top of his thigh slip inside and he opened his legs for her. He buried his face in the junction of her neck and shoulder as she slid one finger inside him, his mouth falling open in a silent moan, breath coming deeper the deeper she went. She inserted another finger. The boy arched his back, rubbing himself against her, moving his head to the pillow of her breast and kneading it in mindless tandem with her moving inside him.

It did not strike her until the boy surrendered to his orgasm how much she pitied him. Her own desire had evaporated long before. The way he held onto her body was like a child holding onto its mother, craving that most base of affections—feeling so empty as to find comfort only in the single sensation of being physically filled by another human being.

Her thoughts turned to the scars that criss-crossed his seventeen-year-old body while his breaths against her skin gradually slowed. What cruelty the boy had known until now she could only begin to imagine. Those that marked his torso had healed long ago, though the vicious scratches on his arm remained fresh enough to make her wince to glance at them. But it was the strange, light pink rings around the bases of the outer two fingers of both his hands, like the marks left by rings worn too long in the sun, that especially aroused her curiosity.

Kiyoko rose and slipped silently into the bathroom, pulling her hair up as she went. She bathed quickly and re-dressed herself in the main room where the boy was sleeping soundly on. A long skirt that hugged her hips and a mandarin-collared blouse. A baggy cardigan in the style of a haori hanging slightly off her shoulders. She touched up her foundation but did not bother with lipstick. Some heavy gold jewelry given her by her late husband completed the ensemble.

The only remnants of her past life anymore where the two plain _kanzashi_ that held her hair loosely up and the open-toed mules on her feet. The latter was her only remaining vice. When she had been in the Kokakurou, it had always amused her most to see how the merest glimpse of bare toes beneath the hem of kimono could so thoroughly capture a man's attention, make him drool for more. Such was the power of the _tayuu_—the power of absolute dominion over men.

She took the elevator down to the lobby and went to take a seat at the bar in the lounge. It was mostly empty this time of day, even on the last day before the weekend; most people, not least among them the kind who could afford this hotel, frowned upon drinking before noon. She, on the other hand, could think of no better time.

She ordered a single glass of dry Riesling. The young bartender all but blushed at her coquettish thanks when he placed the glass before her. It led Kiyoko's thoughts back to the boy in her room upstairs, so that she could hardly find the resolve to take that first sip.

"Ah, Kaede-san. I was just on my way to see you when I thought I spotted your figure at the bar," came the voice of Muraki over her shoulder before he sat down beside her. He managed an after the fact, "Mind if I join you?"

She flashed him a smile, though there was nothing genuine behind it. "It's a free country."

He ordered a whiskey, his eyes never leaving her. "And I thought I was the only one who drank before lunch," he murmured.

"I enjoy the solitude."

"You enjoy breaking the convention. That's one thing you and I have in common." When she turned her eyes toward him in a silent warning, he lowered his gaze and changed tactics. "But I thought you had given up booze with the rest of the Kokakurou."

"I've given up sake," she replied coolly, taking a sip of the Riesling, though suddenly its sweetness seemed utterly incongruous. "And getting drunk. There's a difference."

"Of course, there is. Do you mind if I smoke?"

She shrugged indifferently. Not that saying she did mind would have changed anything. He was already reaching into his jacket for a pack of cigarettes as he asked. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as he pulled a cigarette free with his long, pale fingers and held it to his lips, and as he struck a wooden match from a matchbook on the bar and lit up. He exhaled without any of the relish of young people these days, who were desperate for the buzz, treating the cigarette just as he treated those around him—inconsequential. There was something nostalgic about his every action; and no doubt that was his very intention: it irritated her.

She turned back to her wine. Shortly he said, "How is the boy doing?"

"Well," she replied ambiguously, suddenly feeling ashamed under Muraki's scrutinizing gaze that must have seen straight into her heart. "He's sleeping at the moment."

"That's good. He needs all the rest he can get, to save up his energy."

"He will need some changes of clothes, too, if you intend for him to stay here for any length of time."

"I will have something sent up to your room this afternoon."

"I saw the scars."

Kiyoko sensed no change in the doctor's manner, and she pressed on: "The ones all over his body. On his arm. I must apologize for ever doubting your intention, bringing him here to me. I could not have imagined that he would have been treated so cruelly. Who in hell could have done something like that, let alone why—"

"Now, now, you promised you would not ask."

She closed her mouth. "I know."

When she said nothing more, he smiled. "It really has been a long time, hasn't it, Kaede? Almost fifteen years, if I remember right. My, how the time just flies by, yet you don't look a day older than last we saw one another. You don't sound any different, either. It makes it that much more difficult for me to believe that the Kokakurou's fiery maple has been transformed into the late Chairman Komatsu's faithful little pine."

Kiyoko bristled at his puns on her names, both old and new. "I don't expect someone like you to understand my decision."

"On the contrary, Kaede. I understand completely. Oh, you were a work of art; I'll give you that. But what woman in her right mind, masterpiece or not, wouldn't choose monogamy over a life of sexual servitude? I only wonder if your husband was aware of the nature of your feelings toward him."

"I loved my husband," Kiyoko replied with a slight snarl. "Maybe it's difficult for you to comprehend how a marriage between a corporate chairman and a former prostitute could be about anything other than money and sex, but there's no reason I should justify my feelings to the likes of you.

"And stop calling me by that name," she added for good measure. "I left the Mibu household long ago."

"My apologies, Kiyoko," he continued in a lower voice. "All I meant was that I find it ironic you keep the Komatsu name, when perhaps you are not as faithful as you would like everyone to think."

She spun to face him. "Are you accusing me of infidelity, Dr. Muraki?"

"No. Only that I'm not sure it's wise to take advantage of an impressionable young man running from an abusive situation."

Inwardly Kiyoko started, though she tried not to show it. Amazing how the doctor could read her like a book.

Her thoughts returned to earlier that morning, and how easily her casual conversation with the boy had turned into something more. She remembered now—Fujisawa had been the one to initiate it, though his innocently pleading look when he stood too close to Kiyoko, and stared up at her from under his fringe of brown hair, had made her feel the predator. And she who had long prided herself on restraint and distance, a forty-one-year-old widow who had left physical pleasure behind her, had found herself melting under the blunt advances of a high school boy who was young enough to be her son. Yet it sounded more repulsive when phrased that way than it had seemed at the time. "It just sort of happened. . . ." was all she could think of to say in her own defense.

Muraki hummed and nodded. "Yes, things do have a way of . . . happening with that boy, don't they?"

"Kind of like how things have a way of . . . _happening_," she mimicked his emphasis, "around you, Doctor? I'm beginning to see why you might have identified with the boy enough to do this for him. You never were one to go out of your way for your fellow human beings."

Kiyoko ignored the look of warning she knew he must be giving her.

"If there's one thing I can say for you," Muraki said, changing the subject, "it's that you've always had a certain panache when it comes to expressing your disgust. Normally I can't stand that in a woman, but in your case I suppose it was only fitting. Everything became an art form in your hands." With his cigarette between his fingers, he raised the tumbler of whiskey to his lips. "I don't mind telling you, frankly, that you embody everything I hate," he said when he had put it back down. "Or at least you used to. But you knew that already, didn't you?"

"Yes," Kiyoko said, and got no pleasure from it.

"I take it the feeling is mutual."

"On the contrary, I have learned to keep my mind clear of such petty emotions, especially those concerning the distant past."

"Come on. You can be honest. You know what sins I've committed; I know you've heard them from your little brother." His grin was derisive, bitterly amused, as he took another sip. "So show some solidarity with your sex, Kaede, and admit you despise me."

She turned to him with a sharp glare, but found it not the least bit difficult to keep her voice calm. Knowing this man, nothing would give him more pleasure than to feel justified in assuming this persona of the monster. But he came to the wrong person if he expected her to hand that satisfaction to him.

"No, Dr. Muraki," she told him. A slight smile tugged at one corner of her mouth. "I don't despise you. I pity you. What did your mother do to you to make you hate women so much?"

As expected, his smile slowly fell, though he struggled to keep it.

"You'd do well not to mention that woman in my presence," he said.

"Or what? Is that supposed to be a threat, Dr. Muraki?" She forced a laugh. "You don't scare me. You wouldn't think of doing anything to hurt me—_I_ am not one of your little whores you can do with as you please. You know how disappointed Oriya would be in you if anything happened to me."

"He already is."

"Yes, but there are some sins even he cannot forgive. And I can take consolation in that fact."

"Yet you keep reminding me yourself, _Kiyoko_," he said pointedly, "you are no longer a Mibu. Did you forget that already?"

Kiyoko swirled the wine remaining in her glass, watching the pale yellow waves lapping against the sides. She raised it to her lips. "Nay, I remember it every second of my life," she told him in the high Kyoto dialect of her youth, murmuring over the rim of the glass, "No matter how I try to forget."

—o—

The hotel Tatsumi had booked them into at the start of this case had come as little surprise to Hisoka when he laid eyes on it. It looked to be a relic from the war era if not older, not run-down per se but any original features obscured over the decades by multiple layers of paint and chips. The elevator was ancient, but at least there were not too many levels and the room he shared with Tsuzuki was only on the third floor. Unlike his partner, he couldn't complain. It might not have looked attractive, but it was clean and had its own, albeit small, bathroom.

And it was cheap. Just that admission made Hisoka have to shake his head at himself. Tatsumi was beginning to rub off on him.

He knew Tsuzuki would be out, snooping around at the police station, seeing if he couldn't get some better understanding of their suspect's sudden disappearance. Not that Hisoka minded spending a few hours alone. Those were a few hours alone that could be put to good use releasing some of the mental tension high school life had piled up inside him over the past week.

He jogged up the stairs and dug into his pocket for his room key when he reached the door.

"Well, look who finally decided to show up," came a familiar voice at his back.

Hisoka spun. "Fujisawa," he growled.

"In the flesh."

"Where have you been?"

The young man in question pushed himself away from the wall against which he had been leaning, smiling his wicked smile as he took the acknowledgment as an invitation to approach. "That's what I was going to ask you," he said. "Don't you know it's rude to keep people waiting?"

"You followed me here?"

Fujisawa shrugged. That wasn't good. Suddenly it came back to Hisoka—that feeling of being watched he had experienced downtown on the first night of their investigation, and the day after. At the time, in his gut he had questioned whether it was Muraki, and now he understood why. But if Fujisawa knew enough about him and Tsuzuki to come here and lie in wait, what else did he know of their habits?

"I couldn't very well approach you at school, now, could I? What with the police wanting me for questioning and everyone at that academy knowing my face—"

"What do you want?"

Fujisawa grinned. "Well, isn't that a loaded question?"

Hisoka was determined not to bait him by showing the slightest sign of discomfort, but even then he couldn't be sure Fujisawa was not already fully aware of the effect he had. Once again, he stood too close. Once again, he stared too long. It was all a game to him, that much Hisoka knew, when he murmured, "Relax, Kurosaki. I didn't come here for pleasure. At least, not completely, not this time. So don't feel bad about not inviting me in, even though I can't really blame you. I wouldn't invite me in either, if I were you. I only came here to deliver something to you. In person."

He held up a piece of stationery folded in thirds between them, adding wryly, "For the fairest one of all."

That phrase again . . . It brought to mind the image of Hiragawa's corpse slouched against the chain-link fence in the back of the alley, making Hisoka bristle all over again. He snatched the paper from Fujisawa, who appeared amused even at that. Was there nothing Hisoka could do that wouldn't be construed as some sort of encouragement by this guy?

"Do I get to ask you another question this time?" Hisoka said, ignoring the folded paper. "You wanted to extend the fun, right, so you gonna give me another chance?"

The other's face lit up. "That's right! I guess they didn't make you a shinigami for nothing with a memory like that. So what'll it be, Kurosaki?" He stood back, spreading his arms. "For a hundred-million dollars, what would you like to ask me?"

"Is this scheme of yours connected at all to Surgatanus and Focalor, or any of the devils Tsuzuki might've pissed off when he destroyed them? Did Ashtaroth set Muraki up to this?"

Fujisawa just laughed and shook his head at that, before Hisoka could even finish, as though what he said were the funniest thing in the world. "And he throws away his golden opportunity!" he roared, loud enough for anyone in the lobby to hear. He lowered his voice: "You crack me up, Kurosaki. Did you really think any of this had to do with the likes of them, that this was all part of some great cosmic plot? Wouldn't that be rich. . . . No, Sensei's told me all about that—he seems quite taken with the achievements of that partner of yours—but he doesn't have any interest in involving himself in the politics of Hell.

"He sees himself as being quite above that," Fujisawa added as though to himself.

Then, more pointedly, to Hisoka: "You and your partner are going to have to step up the pace if you want to figure this out. You're already falling behind the local police. And stop asking stupid questions. I know you're smarter than that."

"Then how's this for a question?" Hisoka said. "What did Muraki promise you? Was it revenge? Because he must have told you already that your killer is dead." (If he were honest with himself, that was one thing he couldn't help envying Fujisawa, in a perverse way.) That didn't seem to come as any shock, "So what was it? Or did I already use up my one chance to get a straight answer?"

Fujisawa sighed. "Oh, that's one you would really like to know, isn't it? I guess I should be relieved you didn't ask me that first."

"So you're not going to tell me."

"Sorry. Don't want to ruin the surprise. Of course," he renewed his smile, "there won't be any need to address that if you two simply follow those instructions I just gave you to the letter." And he indicated the note in Hisoka's hand with a nod.

Hisoka furrowed his brows. "You mean, if we just do what the letter says this little game of yours and Muraki's is over?" He wasn't buying it. That was too easy, too unlike Muraki. And, he was starting to suspect, unlike Fujisawa as well.

"You could put it that way," the other said. "Or you could say it's just the beginning. It depends on your point of view. Then again, you're not really gonna do what I say, are you?"

"What's in the letter?"

"You'll have to find out. I really don't know myself." Fujisawa spread his arms innocently, as though he were to follow it with a court jester's bow. "I'm just the messenger."

The messenger, was he? Then Hiragawa, the men missing their livers, they were all just notes like this one left behind by Muraki's undead errand boy?

As Hisoka contemplated what he had been told, Fujisawa said as though the thought had just struck him. "Well, I've got to be on my way, Kurosaki. I sure do hope this isn't the last time you and I meet. That would really be a pity—"

"Wait," Hisoka said as he made a move to leave. Screw the rules of the game, one thing continued to bother him. He had to know: "What does Muraki want with me all of a sudden?"

That made Fujisawa pause in midstride. He turned back to Hisoka, cocking his head. "Want with you?" He made a sound of disbelief. "You think you're the 'fairest one of all' that letter refers to? Is that what you've thought all this time, Kurosaki?" He chuckled at that, saying as he stepped back toward the stairs, "Man, you really are conceited. Do you think everything is about you?"

He whistled an old popular American tune as he took to the stairs, turning on the landing to fix his gaze with Hisoka's one last time. And this time Hisoka was more than content to let him go.

—o—

"Absolutely not! I won't let you do it!"

Tsuzuki blinked up at Hisoka, his chopsticks about half-way to his mouth when he was startled by the sound of the chair protesting when his partner suddenly stood.

He put down the chopsticks and tilted his head. "But, Hisoka, the letter says I'm to come alone. It couldn't be any clearer than that." The offending piece of creased paper lay open on the table between them—between cartons of Thai take-out from a hole-in-the-wall diner down the street. "Besides, you just got done saying Fujisawa told you we could end this thing tomorrow if we follow the instructions to the letter; and I have every intention of doing that. The case comes first, Hisoka."

Hisoka remained standing. "You don't actually believe that crap about ending it, do you? We're dealing with Muraki, here. Since when has he ever been known to keep his word?"

"He doesn't have a habit of lying. More like stretching the truth. That only means we have to be more careful about taking anything he promises at face value."

"I can't believe you're defending him."

Again Tsuzuki looked up at him, and Hisoka had to recoil with the sudden realization he had said too much. Slowly he took his seat, and pushed his food around his cheap paper plate for a moment. "All I meant to say was, it's obviously a trap," he said by way of apology.

"I'm prepared for that."

No, Hisoka said to himself. I don't think you are. "That's all well and good," he said, however, "but it's not you I don't trust. Every time he gets you somewhere alone, you come back to us more messed up than before. Sorry to put it as bluntly as that, but I don't think you realize how much it hurts the rest of us when that happens."

Tsuzuki smiled gently. "I do realize that, Hisoka. But if anything that just means I have to be stronger. You and Tatsumi are always treating me like a child to be coddled and protected, but the fact is, I've been doing this longer than both of you."

Funny how he always seemed to know just what was on his partner's mind—like how the secretary's words to him the other day had not been very far from Hisoka's thoughts at any time. And I'm supposed to be the empathic, he thought as he looked down at his food.

Coddled. Protected. . . . There was no doubt that encompassed much of the chief's and Tatsumi's treatment of Tsuzuki over the years. It wasn't like they doubted his ability to get the job done, though they were content to joke about that aloud. So wasn't Tsuzuki justified in wanting to revolt against that kind of treatment? Hisoka wondered not for the first time. He knew he'd feel the same way if Tsuzuki and the others treated him like that. Still, this was Muraki they were talking about—

"In any case," Tsuzuki continued, "I'm more afraid of what will happen if I don't fulfill his wishes and don't come alone than if I do. He might take another victim—or sic Fujisawa on some other innocent for him. Bastard doesn't even want to dirty his hands on this. Hisoka . . ." He forced a laugh. "I don't know what else to tell you. I already feel like I jinxed the Hiragawa boy. If it turned out I had a chance to prevent another death, a definite chance, and I squandered it, I'd never forgive myself. You know that."

"Yeah," Hisoka muttered. "I know."

"Then you'll do the right thing and let me go. We're just going out for tea and dessert, just like the note says. I'll be back by dinner at the very least."

He didn't say it, but Hisoka could nevertheless hear the unspoken "I promise" in his tone.

"I'll see what I can do about getting him to relinquish Fujisawa's soul while I'm there. I'm sure we can reach some kind of compromise about returning him to Meifu for judgment, settle this like gentlemen."

But Hisoka wasn't buying that. If Muraki were even willing to make such a trade, guaranteed his price would be something they couldn't afford to pay. Nor was he buying the slight, distant smile on his partner's lips. It was the same smile he remembered being on Tsuzuki's lips when he drank and called himself a monster in that bar in Kyoto all those years ago. Its tacit melancholy remained etched in Hisoka's memory, as did the desperation and violence against himself that followed. Even now, even without actually doing anything, Muraki had an unshakable grip on Tsuzuki. Hisoka could never forgive him that.

"I'm coming along anyway."

"No, you're not, Hisoka, and that's final. I mean it. Now, I'm the senior shinigami here and I'm putting my foot down on this."

But Hisoka had made up his mind as well. "I'll keep my distance, but I'm following you two whether you like it or not. I don't trust Muraki, no matter what he says on paper."

"Hisoka, I don't think—"

"You're not the only one who'd never forgive himself if something happened," Hisoka said, and as though to put the debate to rest once and for all, pushed a wad of rice noodles into his mouth. In part, though, he hadn't wanted to say it out loud again; but it was the thought of losing Tsuzuki—again—that he feared most.

Tsuzuki looked like he wanted to say more as well, but he closed his mouth with a cryptic smile even Hisoka couldn't read and turned his attention back to the food.

The silence only lasted a second, however, as the noodles almost went down the wrong pipe when Hisoka swallowed. "This phad thai is spicy!" he gasped.

"I like it that way," Tsuzuki told him teasingly. "I thought you didn't eat sweet things."

Hisoka frowned, reddening. "You paid for it, so I figured I should at least try it." And he took another bite to prove his resolution.

Tsuzuki grinned. "You're beginning to sound like Tatsumi."

He meant it lightly, Hisoka knew, but he couldn't help but pause at his partner's all-too-fitting choice of words.

—o—

The weather turned gloomy early Sunday morning. Under an overcast sky the leaves on the trees rustled and twisted on their branches in their own frenzied semblance of a rain dance, reaching thirstily for the first drops of rain the dark clouds promised.

In equal anticipation, the streets lacked their usual weekend bustle, most Sunday shoppers taking preemptive shelter indoors or walking briskly along with plastic umbrellas ready in hand.

Tsuzuki did not bother with umbrella or hat or hood, but almost wished the rain would hurry up and come and soak him through. Anticipating it was the worst part. And that was true of everything, but nothing more so than the meeting he had scheduled with Muraki at eleven that morning.

He knew Hisoka was following several meters behind him, invisible to all the living he dodged along the way, but for once his partner's presence was not a comfort to him but a distraction. Tsuzuki insisted that his decision to tag along was only opening them up to the doctor's scrutiny and providing him with extra ammunition against them. But in addition to that—he knew it was probably selfish of him to think so, but Hisoka's refusal to stay back at the room only added to a growing feeling within Tsuzuki that his partner did not trust him as much as he had believed. And if Hisoka didn't trust him . . .

He pushed those thoughts wholly from his mind as he arrived outside the appointed cafe. He needed a clear mind for what was to come, free of those distractions that threatened to drag him down if he would only let them.

Tsuzuki stepped into the cafe and glanced around. The place was full of young couples and groups of friends and students out for a weekend brunch, taking cover in the warm and low-lit atmosphere, and filling the establishment with the sound of their laughter and garbled conversation. In a place like this, whatever the two of them had to discuss would melt into the din. Tsuzuki only hoped that, in a place like this, Muraki would not be tempted to try anything rash.

His gaze alighted on Muraki's pale figure, seated alone at a table in the far back corner, sealed in his own little bubble of calm and quiet that the energy of the rest of the place did not seem able to penetrate.

Just the sight of him took Tsuzuki back. It had been four years since he had last seen that man—for four years he had wondered, and hoped, that the doctor was dead, that he had finally perished in that awful laboratory. Whether from Touda's flames or the wound Tsuzuki couldn't wholly remember inflicting, he didn't care. He had hoped, even when his gut told him otherwise, that he was finally free of that man and all the pain that surrounded him wherever he went.

And of the past that his presence somehow always managed to bring to the surface, fresh as the days Tsuzuki had lived it.

Tsuzuki suppressed a snarl. Half of him—a very vocal half of him—wanted to simply turn around and walk out of the establishment, and try to pretend this had all been a figment of his imagination. The other half wasn't much better; it wanted to do something infinitely worse, something Enma would never forgive him for. Yet somehow he found the presence of mind to walk calmly to that man's table.

Muraki looked up from the cream clouding his tea when Tsuzuki's shadow fell over his table. The expression that momentarily crossed his features recalled their first meeting, when Tsuzuki hadn't yet known him well enough to hate him as the monster he was. In the ignorance of that first meeting, Muraki had seemed almost pitiable, as though stricken by amazed disbelief at what stood before his own eyes.

Now, however, the irony of that look only made Tsuzuki's stomach turn.

"Tsuzuki. I'm so glad you could come." His silver gaze was intense, his voice tender and polite. He had not changed. "And punctual as always. Eleven o'clock on the dot. I appreciate that."

"It didn't sound like I had a choice. But your request seemed painless enough."

Muraki smiled at that. "Please, have a seat," he said, gesturing for Tsuzuki to do so. "Make yourself comfortable: we have much to discuss. Would you like anything? Coffee, tea? Something to eat, perhaps—"

"I'm not that hungry," Tsuzuki told him as he sat. "I'm sure you understand."

"Yes. I suppose I do."

Nonetheless, seeing Tsuzuki come in, a waiter approached and Muraki ordered a pot of orange pekoe for him. Tsuzuki clenched his jaw, but said nothing until the waiter left and Muraki was topping off his own cup.

"How did you do it?" Tsuzuki said.

Muraki looked up. He slowly put the small ceramic pot down. "Excuse me?"

"Get out of that lab alive. How did you do it? I barely made it out myself and I wasn't bleeding to death."

"I'm not entirely sure, myself. All I can say with any certainty is that you and I seem to have a certain stubbornness for living hardwired into our beings, even against our best efforts to the contrary. God knows in some ways I had actually wanted everything to end there; it would certainly have been fitting, dying in that lab, by your hand, under my brother's gaze, surrounded by the reminders of our sins, our fathers' sins; but life does not always work out the way you plan. Or death, for that matter. You should know that better than anybody."

"Don't compare the two of us, Muraki. I know how much pleasure it must give you to think we're birds of a feather, how much justification you must get, but you're deluding yourself the longer you continue like this."

"I don't think so, Tsuzuki." Muraki smiled as he raised his cup to his lips. "If anyone is deluded, it's you. Not that I can blame you. I was like you once. No matter what evil acts I committed, I convinced myself there was a greater good behind them, even if I could not yet see it. And with all those surrounding you who want to protect you from the truth, it is easy to see how you would come to such a conclusion yourself. However, the fact remains: you and I have much more in common than you can even guess, Tsuzuki. So much more."

The hard edge had returned to Muraki's voice—the hard, seductive edge that spelled danger to Tsuzuki. He was resolved not to give the doctor the satisfaction of getting to him. He changed topics. "Let's talk about Fujisawa."

Muraki made a motion like a shrug as he took a sip. He set his cup down on its saucer and leaned back, made himself comfortable. "Let's."

"You brought him back to life. I don't give two shits how. The fact is, in order to do it you had to steal his soul back from us; we know that much. Even barring that detail, though, I didn't think you could get a soul back into a body in as sad a shape as his."

"Fujisawa was an old experiment," Muraki said disinterestedly; and his use of past tense bothered Tsuzuki. "I don't see why you should be concerned about a practice piece like him."

"_Why?_"

Tsuzuki was about to say more when the waiter returned with a cup and saucer and his pot of tea.

He waited for the young man to leave, then leaned over the table and hissed: "You don't see why we should be concerned? That his soul was stolen from our secure systems is reason enough for Enma to be concerned. But using him to commit your murders for you, cutting out people's body parts, for no other reason than to get me here for a spot of tea . . ."

Muraki smiled to himself at that.

"It's beyond unconscionable," Tsuzuki said. "Believe me, I would like nothing more right now than to obliterate a monster like you from existence for committing something so heinous, if I knew Enma wasn't so eager to meet your twisted soul himself."

"I'm sure he has something quite awful planned for me," Muraki all but chuckled. "But you would not dare anything here. In front of all these mortals. You don't have that in you."

A bitter grin pulled up one corner of Tsuzuki's mouth. "No. Be thankful I at least have that much humanity."

"Yes. Seeing as your humanity is at the crux of the matter."

"My humanity. . . ." Tsuzuki forced a laugh. "I hope you didn't orchestrate this whole thing just so you could bait me with that old bit again. I haven't forgotten the last time you called that into question. You said I was a demon. It's old news."

As he spoke, Muraki's steady gaze left his for a moment, flickering to something over Tsuzuki's shoulder before returning to his face. "And?" he said when his attention had returned to Tsuzuki. "Does it still affect you? Have you accepted the truth about your nature or does the boy still have you convinced of your human-ness?"

"I have decided not to dwell on it," Tsuzuki told him, not liking at all the way Muraki said "the boy." "Whether I am or not—that's not something I can exactly change, can I? Now that I'm here."

Muraki's smile was painfully sarcastic. "How quaint."

"I've given up blaming myself for my existence."

"That's interesting. People are giving up all sorts of things these days, it seems." Muraki looked up from his cup over Tsuzuki's shoulder again. Took another sip. "However," he said when he lowered the cup, "what you do with your existence, now that it is yours . . . that is another matter entirely. I wonder if your feelings would change if you knew the truth about yourself, Tsuzuki—"

"Did I stutter? I just told you—"

"The _whole_ truth, Tsuzuki, not something I mumbled to you in passing four years ago." That effectively quieted the shinigami, allowing Muraki to add just loud enough for Tsuzuki alone to catch: "Like it changed me, opened my eyes, when I learned the truth about my own conception."

Tsuzuki stared at him in silence for a moment, watching Muraki swirl the last of his tea in his cup while the sounds of the cafe's other patrons washed over them. It must have been a trick of the low light making him imagine things that wouldn't otherwise enter his rational mind, but under other circumstances Tsuzuki would have said the doctor was struggling to hold his normally unflappable composure together.

"I don't get it," Tsuzuki whispered. "What does your coming into the world have to do with me? Or with this case, for that matter? Other than being the cause of all this, of course."

"You remember my grandfather, don't you—" Muraki started, but then he stopped himself. "No. Never mind."

Tsuzuki knitted his brow. This wasn't like the doctor at all. "No, tell me what you were going to say," he said louder. "You asked me here, you bastard—you went through all the trouble of getting me here, so let's have it. What about your grandfather, Muraki?"

Come on, he thought. Just give me something I can take as a confession, as a motive, anything. Just one reason why I shouldn't come after you with everything I have for what you did to us all those years ago. To all those innocent people. . . . To Hisoka.

Muraki's lips parted to say more, but he changed his mind and closed them again with a hum, put the spoon down on the saucer, and reached into his jacket pocket for a money clip. Slowly he unclipped a small wad of folded bills and separated what he judged to be the appropriate amount from the rest.

"I'm sorry you and I did not have the proper chance to speak openly on all the points we would have liked," he said as he laid the bills on the end of the table. "At least I was able to see you again in person, though. I do treasure what few opportunities fate allows us to meet like this—"

"What about Fujisawa? We won't rest until we've reclaimed his soul—"

"You'll do no such thing until I'm done with the boy. Which now, thanks to you, will be a while longer; but you should have realized that sooner—"

"Wait!" Tsuzuki told him as he started to rise. The barely suppressed growl in his voice made Muraki pause as he stood beside the edge of the table with his white coat draped over his arm, even if any reaction to it did not make it to his eyes. "Sit down," Tsuzuki said. "We're not finished here."

"Yes, we are. Though I do admire this authoritative instinct of yours, the delicious irony of your letting it slip out while you try in vain to deny what you are. It makes me wish I could stay a bit longer, but, well . . ." Muraki tapped the tabletop with two pale fingers. "Why don't you take your time and enjoy yourself. On me. You haven't touched your tea. You do like orange pekoe, don't you?"

"I don't care about the damn tea! I came here like you asked, prepared to listen to anything you had to say. I did nothing but cooperate—"

"Ah," Muraki said sharply, "see, that's where you are mistaken. Are you not going to drink this?" He indicated the pot of tea he had ordered for Tsuzuki, and poured a cup without waiting for a response. "My demands were simple," he sighed as he did so. "So simple and straightforward, I honestly did not think there would be any need for clarification. Now, I know you're not stupid, Tsuzuki, so what was it? Did you think you could outsmart me, or maybe that I just wasn't that serious?"

"What do you—" Tsuzuki started, but Muraki strode past him with the cup full of tea in hand.

Tsuzuki started to his feet, but he could only watch as Muraki stopped beside one of the precious few unoccupied tables at the other end of the establishment. That was, Tsuzuki knew, his spirits sinking, unoccupied except by Hisoka—who should have been invisible to everyone in the cafe, including Muraki.

Now Muraki was looking right at him. Hisoka started, his green eyes widening and flashing between the two of them, trying to make himself smaller against the seat of the booth as though by doing so he could somehow escape. And Tsuzuki could do nothing but stare as Muraki upended the cup over the boy's head. To his credit, Hisoka managed to suppress a gasp as the hot water hit his scalp and poured over his shoulders, soaking into his clothes and burning his eyes; but the damage was done. Every head in the establishment was turned in their direction, marveling at the tea that seemed to cascade from some unseen object in mid-air.

The attention bothered the doctor. He was quite aware how unhinged his actions had made him seem in the other patrons' eyes. But his indignation would not let him acknowledge it. "Go on, boy," he muttered through gritted teeth, "show yourself. If you dare in front of all these people."

Hisoka said nothing, only fought to sit as still and silent as he could, catching quiet, shallow breaths through his open mouth and pleading to Tsuzuki with his eyes.

"No? Pity," Muraki snarled at him, and strode out of the establishment.

Tsuzuki hurried after him, ignoring the look his partner must have been giving him. Hisoka would be fine. The one they had to worry about right now was Muraki. Tsuzuki couldn't allow him to get away and disappear again—not like this, with so much left unanswered. The bell swung violently on its hook as he bolted out the door.

The doctor hadn't gone far. Even from an embarrassment like he had just caused, it was not in his character to run. He was walking down the sidewalk at a leisurely pace, pulling on his coat against the cool wind that was picking up.

He turned when Tsuzuki called his name.

"Was that really necessary?"

"I only asked for one little thing," he told Tsuzuki in that same tone of voice the shinigami detested—that tone that implied _he_, Muraki, was the victim: "for you to come alone. Was that really so difficult?"

"I didn't have a choice!" Tsuzuki shouted after him. "Do you think I _asked_ him to come with me?"

"Why not? You've shown before that you don't trust me; although a part of me believed we might have been past that."

Tsuzuki clenched his fists at his sides. Muraki could not have known it, but his words could hardly have been more appropriate. The whole reason the doctor was walking away was because someone who should have did not trust Tsuzuki himself. But it wasn't like he could control that. . . .

When he said nothing, Muraki hummed to himself. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised," he said, "that you still haven't learned to take me seriously. However, I suppose that will come in time. After all, you've only known me a little over half a decade, whereas I, on the other hand . . ."

"What are you planning to do? What were you going to say back there? Whatever it is, tell me—name the place and I'll meet you there, but say what you have to say and get it over with!"

"Why should I? Because I've finally succeeded in arousing your curiosity and now it won't let you be?" Muraki chuckled. "I don't think so. You had your chance and you chose to squander it."

"Muraki . . ." Lying bastard, he would only love to see Tsuzuki squirm. "This isn't over."

"You're right. It isn't," the doctor said coolly as he turned up the collar of his coat in anticipation of rain. "I do not appreciate being trivialized, Tsuzuki. I want to make that very clear."

He walked away without another word; and against everything his better judgment screamed at him, Tsuzuki let him. It wasn't long before Muraki disappeared into the gray around them, leaving only the unanswered questions to fill Tsuzuki's thoughts.

He paid no attention when the bell of the cafe's front door chimed again, not until he heard Hisoka's voice at his back, quietly speaking his name. He turned to see his partner standing there, shivering under his wet hair and clothes that had gone cold in the autumn chill. He looked so small like that, with his hands at his sides and his eyes downcast. Tail between his legs. . . .

Suddenly Tsuzuki couldn't stand the sight of him.

"Tsuzuki . . . I—"

Hisoka couldn't bring himself to say any more. Maybe it was the ambivalence in his partner's eyes that stopped his tongue, the silent I-told-you-so that neither could say he didn't deserve. The tea dripping from his bangs into his eyes that he hadn't wiped away could almost be misconstrued as tears.

—o—

One could only imagine what an immense amount of self-restraint it took Muraki to suppress his frustration, though somehow he managed to maintain his cool exterior before all those he passed. Perhaps it was a growing sense of amusement, however small it remained at this moment, that helped to put his nerves at ease: amusement at the fact that despite the ambiguous threats delivered by him in the letter, and by Fujisawa in person, that arrogant boy persisted in breaking the rules of the game. Willingly. Recklessly.

Was this the boy's idea of revenge, making Muraki regret ever toying with him in that cherry grove? Because it was proving remarkably successful.

Yet this was only a minor set-back, he assured himself, one that had a solution that only need be implemented. Once events unfolded themselves, he would get his way in the end, one way or another. Just as he always did. Even if his victory were a small one. Everything happened for a reason.

He strode through the elegant lobby of Kiyoko's hotel paying no attention to the opulence around him—straight to the front desk where he asked the clerk behind it to phone her room.

The clerk asked no questions, just did as he was told. Muraki liked that. He didn't like it so much when several seconds had gone by and the man had said nothing, and began to look impatient.

"Keep waiting," Muraki told him. But after a minute had gone by, the clerk hung up with a polite shrug. "I'm sorry, sir, but there's no answer. Shall I take a message?"

Muraki turned his gaze toward the ceiling—as though the floors that separated him from that room could disappear before his eyes and confirm his fears. "That won't be necessary," he told the man with a smile. "I'll see to this myself."

He headed for the elevators.

—o—

Kiyoko's laughter died as she closed the door to her room behind the boy and herself. Slowly, the boy's followed suit, though his sobriety seemed much less abrupt.

Muraki was sitting on the davenport before the window, a book spread open on his knees, reading only by the gray light of the overcast sky. He looked up at them when they came in the room, and the displeasure in his eyes that could not erase his cruel smile was clear.

Kiyoko pretended not to notice. "Dr. Muraki," she said as she removed her coat and hat and hung them up. "You should have told me you planned on dropping by today. I thought you had an appointment this afternoon."

"It finished earlier than I expected," he said ambiguously. "You two look as though you've been enjoying yourselves. Mind if I ask where you went?"

Her reply was just as ambiguous. "Out. I thought Fujisawa could use some fresh air after being cooped up in here for so long."

"You took him outside without informing me—"

"I didn't think a proper lunch and a little shopping would hurt anything."

Muraki took in her conservative dress and strand of pearls, then moved his gaze to Fujisawa, dressed in a pair of pressed slacks and a sweater over his shirt and tie. Even when he wasn't looking at her, he saw right through her. His voice took on a hard edge. "You took the boy to church."

It wasn't exactly a question.

Kiyoko squared her shoulders. She didn't deserve that tone of voice. "So what if I did?" she said. "He said he wanted to go to mass. I couldn't very well refuse; he wanted it so badly. And again, I didn't think it would hurt anything."

"Well, you were mistaken."

Kiyoko started. His sheer audacity to question her judgment like that was almost beyond what she could stand for. So what if she took the boy to Sunday services? Muraki had brought him to her, dumped him and the burden of his care on her lap and she had not once complained or refused. As far as she was concerned, he had no right.

"It really was my idea," Fujisawa spoke up, though Kiyoko knew better than to presume it was in her defense. "Don't worry: I was careful. I made sure the church we went to was on the other side of town from that one."

"That doesn't change matters. Kiyoko should have been stronger in refusing your request."

The smile that had remained on Fujisawa's lips wavered, and Kiyoko had the feeling she had missed something in their exchange; they might as well have been speaking another language for all she understood. Muraki closed the book on his lap with a finality that chilled her. "Come here," he told the boy.

Fujisawa did as he was told, taking a seat on the davenport next to Muraki. He kept his eyes downcast, but his eyelids fluttered when the doctor put his palm to his forehead, up underneath his bangs, to gently stroke his skin. It felt so good . . . if only the gaze Fujisawa felt on him were not so disapproving.

Muraki's hand moved to his shoulder, pinching the fabric of his sweater between his fingers. "Cashmere," he said in a low voice that seemed so close to Fujisawa's ears it echoed in them. "Did she buy this for you?"

Fujisawa clenched his jaw. He didn't answer.

"You like spending time with that woman, don't you? She buys you nice things. She takes you out for fancy meals. Treats you like a mother would. Or, perhaps, like a lover." Muraki lowered his voice even further to an intimate whisper: "Do you prefer her over me?"

Swallowing, Fujisawa shook his head quickly, unable to find his voice.

"But she's easy. That must be it. You can make her do things you know you can't make me. Is that it?"

"Sensei—"

"You disobeyed me, Fujisawa." Muraki sat back slightly. Suddenly he was cold as ice, and it brought the faintest gasp from Fujisawa. It frightened him, however irrationally. He couldn't understand: What had he done to deserve this? "I believe I told you expressly that you were not to go to Sunday mass."

"But I went with the others in class during the week—"

"You took the Eucharist today, didn't you? Despite everything I said. Do you have a problem with my authority, Fujisawa, or did I not spell it out plainly enough for you?"

With a start, Fujisawa realized that he had begun to tremble slightly—as though with sudden chills, but the room was warm enough. He fought to control the shaking in his limbs, biting his lip. "I'm sorry, Sensei." The words seemed to almost rip themselves from him, he detested them so much. There was no reason to be apologizing for what he did. "I couldn't help myself. I wanted it so badly—you couldn't even understand—they just handed it to me, and I couldn't . . ." He shut his eyes as he tried to hold onto that feeling. The feather-lightness of the wafer in his hand, melting on his tongue. The wine in his bloodstream. Salvation, even for the likes of him. They were just handing it out. . . .

"And I'm to suppose your legs took you up to the altar of their own accord?" Muraki said derisively, banishing those comforting sensations from his mind. "Your weakness is the reason I forbade you to go, you know that. You're not strong enough to restrain yourself. You don't seem to understand the gravity of your situation."

"I didn't see how it could hurt—"

"You have blasphemed gladly against your god and you didn't see how it would hurt?"

Fujisawa grimaced at the harshness of those words, hissed directly into his ear, into his brain. "Need I remind you, Fujisawa," the doctor went on, "you have sinned. You have broken the most serious of commandments, and you think the body of Christ can negate all that? Take it away as though it never happened? Flesh for flesh and blood for blood, is that how you justify it? What sacrilege. What vanity." His accusations penetrated Fujisawa like a knife, like a phallus, making him wince inside each time their truth was driven home. "You are not saving yourself. No, if anything you only worsen the depth of your trespasses with this foolishness. You denied yourself salvation when you swore yourself to me, boy, so don't delude yourself pursuing such false promises of redemption. The only one who can redeem you now is I. Or have you forgotten that already?"

Fujisawa stared up at him—at those silver eyes that could seem at once so gentle and so utterly cruel and inhuman. "No," was all he could manage to say, as uncertain as even that was.

"Did I not say you would be avenged your death?"

"Yes . . ."

"And did I not also say that the power and the glory would be yours if you placed your trust completely in me?" Muraki tilted his head, cupping Fujisawa's jaw as he implored him: "Then why would you want to stray? Why would you try to return to a god who had already abandoned you, Fujisawa, long ago, when I am right here in front of you? Offering you everything you could possibly desire—everything they would deny you, if you would only trust me?"

Because it was familiar, Fujisawa thought. But suddenly he wasn't so sure. He must have had a better reason than that when he asked that woman to take him out, a more rational reason. He just couldn't recall what it was anymore. In the shadow of Muraki's hard gaze, under the onslaught of his seductive words of reason that resonated in his mind with such unarguable truth and conviction, pulling Fujisawa under their spell, he could find no desire nor capacity to argue anymore. It hurt to have that man displeased with him; it hurt so much to be shunned by him, denied his touch—the touch that had awakened him to life.

It did not occur to him to rebut that that life was cursed. It did vaguely occur to him that what Muraki was, what he would have Fujisawa do, was so entirely against everything that his God commanded; but he couldn't quite bring himself to see what was so wrong with that. He never had been able to reconcile himself with God, with the church, so why did he cling to its petty rituals if not for their simple, ineffectual comfort?

A memory of the past returned to him so completely for a moment he was hard-pressed to believe he was not back at that dark, Gothic institution, the side of his face being caressed by the one person who had understood him—the one person who had betrayed him—his light hair falling over his right eye, the most penetrating eyes . . .

"Izuru," he murmured.

Though even then he could not be sure he had not just imagined saying it.

His classmate's lips curved upward in a forgiving smile, and Fujisawa vaguely remembered that he was supposed to answer a question. He just couldn't remember what it was anymore. A hand cradled the back of his head, drawing him toward the other's chest. It took a moment to reorient himself and remember where he was, as the silk of a tie cooled his temple. That tie did not bear the colors of Saint Michel, but rather was the plain white one that Muraki had worn out today, without any of the former's rough weave. The hand tenderly smoothing down his hair was not that of a deceased young man, but that of the devil himself—though when it came down to it, that was a minor distinction, indeed.

Fujisawa put his arms around Muraki's waist as the interior of the woman's hotel room rematerialized in his vision. He sighed deeply at the brush of the doctor's lips against his crown, pressing his own against the man's shirt and breathing in the smoky scent of him that was on it. He was vaguely aware that the doctor was only manipulating him with kindness, just as he always did, but Fujisawa did not care. It felt too good to care.

Her presence ignored as thoroughly as the book still sitting across Muraki's knees, Kiyoko remained standing, staring in disbelief at the two from across the room, where she had frozen in the middle of removing her heavy earrings. She could not hear all of what Muraki was saying to the boy—he spoke in a voice so low only the boy seemed able to hear everything—but she understood enough not to like it. She understood clearly what the doctor had to say about her, anyway. Either way, his manner with the boy sent shivers down her spine.

When he held the boy to him she felt like she was going to be sick. It wasn't so much the complete and utter control he exerted over Fujisawa; she had caught glimpses of that on other occasions. No, Muraki's words to her in the hotel bar suddenly returned to her full-force, with new meaning: _Things do have a way of . . . happening with that boy, don't they?_ How she could have missed his point so completely boggled her mind now, as she watched Fujisawa sigh against Muraki's shirt, his eyelids flutter, his hands grasp at the doctor's back. There was no doubt in Kiyoko's mind what had transpired in the past between the two men. The boy's expression said it all. And Muraki did not seem the least interested in concealing it.

Yet the doctor condemned _her_ for taking the boy to bed.

Fujisawa smiled when he looked up and caught her staring. "Look at her," he chuckled to Muraki—as though Kiyoko were not in the room, or at least not on their level. Something subhuman or worse, another piece of furniture in the room. "I think we're disgusting her, Sensei."

"Mind your manners," Muraki told him, but didn't seem to be chiding him at all.

"I can't believe you, Doctor," Kiyoko told him, causing him to raise his eyes to her finally. "And here I thought all this time you were trying to protect the boy. Boy, was I blind! He trusted you—_you_, a figure of authority in his school, for Christ's sake—and this is how you save him from a dire situation? By . . . by . . ." She forced a laugh, pressing her fingers to her forehead. "I can't even bring myself to say it! You're a despicable creature, Dr. Muraki."

He made no reply to that. "Kiyoko, would you leave us alone for a little while? Fujisawa and I have some things to discuss in private—"

"Absolutely not! I am not going to leave _my_ room so that you two can do whatever unconscionable thing you have planned unfettered."

"Would you rather hear what I have to say?"

Part of her said yes, for her own sake, but an inexplicable horror seized her and she told him instead, "Talk about whatever you like. I'm going to take a bath. It would be nice if you were gone by the time I got out, Doctor."

She headed toward the bathroom conscious of that man's gaze on her back waiting for her to leave them in peace, but an eerie humming sound that took her by surprise made her pause just inside the doorway.

It was Fujisawa, who presently began singing in a long, slow voice in English: "I fell for you like a child—"

"Stop that," she heard Muraki tell him. "What are you doing?"

"It's that man. The one from the karaoke parlor," the boy was saying matter-of-factly. "I hear him inside me still, singing inside my head. I hear them all, but him loudest."

Kiyoko could not make out what Muraki said to him after that; but the boy's last words left her with an ominous feeling nonetheless. It brought to mind Oriya's words of caution to her once, when he had confirmed for her in no explicit terms the truth behind the rumors about that man they had once considered a close family friend—someone she had once taken pity on as a young man the same age as Fujisawa. But Oriya had been clear enough nevertheless, about what horrors Muraki had committed.

She was beginning to worry she should never have allowed the doctor back in. Just what had he gotten her into?

—o—

"_Naa_, Sensei, I forgot to ask you. How did it go today? Did they do everything you asked? No? Huh, I didn't think so, either."

—o—

It was late Sunday night when Jun's cell phone chimed and lit up to tell him he had received a text message. He glanced up from his calculus book open on the bed and pushed himself up off his stomach. He picked up the phone from where it lay on the desk and pressed the OK button. It was probably one of his classmates asking a last minute question about the upcoming quiz, he guessed; but when the number of the sender appeared he did not recognize it.

He pressed the button to read it anyway, and started when the direction of his gaze was drawn immediately to the two Chinese characters of his friend's surname: Hiragawa.

As he read through the message, a first then a second time, restraining the urge to scan the whole thing lest he miss something crucial, surprise quickly gave way to a rage that felt like it would burst inside him.

The message was from Toshio's killer.

—o—

Hisoka wasn't sure what time it was, only that if he didn't get to sleep soon he would hardly have the energy for school in the morning. (As though that were on the top of his list of concerns.) But he couldn't get to sleep, only lie in his narrow hotel bed staring at the wall and playing over the events of the day in his head.

I'm sorry, Tsuzuki. I'm so sorry. . . . Even when he had stopped saying it out loud he repeated it in his head. He'd probably go on thinking those words like a broken record until Tsuzuki finally acknowledged them. But his partner had said nothing—no words of reassurance nor refusal to accept his apology. He'd hardly said a word to Hisoka since they left the cafe that morning. They'd both forgotten to eat. It wasn't like Tsuzuki, and that worried Hisoka more than having the man angry with him. For once Tsuzuki was a closed book to him. If he would just tell me what he's thinking, he thought, I don't care what, just tell me . . .

He knew Tsuzuki was still awake as well, preoccupied with the same thing Hisoka was, so it didn't surprise him when he said in a low voice, "Hey, Hisoka?"

"Yeah."

Tsuzuki paused at that, perhaps expecting Hisoka to be asleep, before he went on: "I forgot to tell you what I uncovered at the police department the other day. I guess with the note from Muraki and the appointment today it must have slipped my mind—"

"What did you find, Tsuzuki?"

Hisoka's voice sounded cold to his own ears, but then again, so had Tsuzuki's. "The police raided the house Fujisawa was living in shortly after he disappeared," he said. "They found . . . pieces . . . of liver, human liver, in the refrigerator. From at least six different donors."

Hisoka shut his eyes tight as the news sunk into him, gripping the sheet in his fist as though at any moment he might fall from the bed. This feeling of despair that suddenly overwhelmed him, was it coming from Tsuzuki or from himself, unconsciously placing himself in those donors' places? Why hadn't Tsuzuki told him before? Pieces, he had said. Not livers. Hisoka had been hoping, really hoping, that the truth would be far, far from the worst, most nightmarish of scenarios his imagination could come up with.

"Six?" he echoed, trying to keep his voice from hitching. "But we only had four . . ."

"I know," Tsuzuki said.

Neither had to spell the implications out loud. Though it was pretty much guaranteed now that Hisoka would be getting no sleep tonight.

* * *

Japanese language note: Muraki's calling Kiyoko a maple and little pine are puns on _kaede_ and _komatsu_ respectively, the latter of which is written with the characters for "small" and "pine tree." In classical Japanese, the pine is a symbol of fidelity and longing (itself a homonym on the verb _matsu_, "to wait") because it never changes from season to season—unlike the cherry and maple, for example. So there's my inside joke for the day. . . .


	6. Adolescent survival game

"Hey, Saki?"

The voice of his classmate beside his ear shook Hisoka out of his thoughts, dragging him back to 2-C and the chatter of the second-year boys and girls eating lunch indoors, and the steady rush of the rain falling outside the window.

He turned to face Jun. Something was bothering him, and what it was Hisoka could probably guess. "What's up?"

Jun opened his mouth, but thought better of whatever he had been about to say. "Never mind. It's none of my business."

Hisoka turned bodily in his seat at that. "No, it's all right," he said. "What's on your mind?"

His gentle way of asking must have had some effect on the other boy, because he glanced around to see if anyone was listening rather than dismissing Hisoka out of hand. He looks as bad as I feel, Hisoka thought, noticing the dark shadows under Jun's eyes. Though it probably wasn't smart for a shinigami to do, he couldn't help empathizing with the other, even if he was aware he might only be projecting his own frustrations onto Jun—his frustration about the sudden lack of communication between himself and Tsuzuki.

"Can I talk to you outside?" Jun said.

When they were alone in the stairwell, it finally came out. "Did you know Fujisawa from somewhere before, Saki?" When Hisoka opened his mouth to insist he absolutely did not, Jun added quickly: "Honestly. He wasn't just bothering you because you're new here like you told the police, was he?"

Hisoka closed his mouth and lowered his gaze. What could he say? Jun wouldn't let him be until he heard what he wanted to. But it wasn't as though Hisoka could just tell him everything, either, about a dead boy coming back to life and his being a shinigami. Even if Jun did believe him, there was protocol to follow. "Why are you asking me this now?" Hisoka said instead—a question for a question.

Jun lowered his own gaze to his hands in his lap, where Hisoka now noticed he was turning a cell phone over in his palm. "He isn't the type to kill someone, is he?"

At Hisoka's silence, Jun looked up at him. "I—I got this message last night," he told Hisoka while his thumb worked the phone. "Here."

He brought up the text message and held out the phone for Hisoka to take—which Hisoka did cautiously, aware of the traces of anxiety and anger that struck him like a static shock through the plastic cell phone. Trying not to let his disgust show on his face, he read the message displayed on the screen:

YOUR FRIEND HIRAGAWA WAS REAL SWEET. TO THE VERY END.

There was no doubt in Hisoka's mind: Only Fujisawa would have written such a thing. But he asked anyway, "Who sent this to you?"

"I don't know. I didn't recognize the number." Jun lowered his voice. "But I'm sure it was him. It's gotta be. He must have gotten my number from Toshio's cell, that's the only explanation I can think of."

Hisoka bit his lip. But he couldn't argue with Jun. He had hit it dead on. He recalled Fujisawa's words to him last week: _Hiragawa was a trusting boy. . . ._ Yes, this sounded just like him. But Hisoka didn't need to tell Jun that. "How can you be sure he isn't just making it up to get to you," Hisoka asked him. "I mean, if this is even from Fujisawa in the first place?"

"Does this sound like the sort of thing someone would make up as a joke? And anyway, you don't know Toshio like I did. You weren't there, you didn't see how he looked at Fujisawa. Like. . . ."

Jun bowed his head, and the wave of grief that emanated from him gave Hisoka an ache in his gut.

"Like?"

"Like Fujisawa was a god."

Hisoka didn't know what to say. It was not as though that information surprised him in any way. Just because he wasn't affected himself didn't mean Fujisawa didn't wield a certain amount of charismatic influence over his peers. What Tsubaki had said to Hisoka years ago was never far from his mind either. To the very end, she had believed Muraki was some sort of angel. Even after he had shot her and left her for dead. She had known Hisoka would never understand that.

Would Hiragawa have agreed with her assessment, if he were still alive today?

"I know you're no priest," Jun began again when Hisoka said nothing, "but can I confess something to you anyway?"

"What are you talking about?"

"What I did to Toshio."

Hisoka started. "But, Jun, you didn't murder him—"

"I know that, but. . . ." A pained smile pulled at the corners of the boy's mouth. "I was his closest friend. He trusted me more than anyone, and I let him down. Maybe that was part of the reason what happened. . . ."

A deep breath, and Jun plunged into the deep end. "He told me once that he had fallen in love with me. It didn't really come as a shock, to be honest. I guess in the back of my mind I always knew Toshio was into guys, though his family would never have sat for it if they knew. They were much more traditional that way. It made me feel bad, you know? He didn't deserve to be hated for what he was, and, I don't know, maybe that affected the way I acted toward him. He must have just assumed, the way I treated him, I felt the same way he did.

"Anyway, when he found out I didn't. . . ." Jun blinked, shook his head at the memory. "He just stopped talking to me. He started isolating himself from everyone, said I wouldn't understand. Like he thought he had betrayed our friendship or something—"

Jun's breathing hitched and he didn't say any more for a several seconds. He just sat there on the step, hanging his head, until, without warning, he lashed out at the wall next to him, hitting it twice with the side of his fist before the utter futility of it sank in.

"It's all my fault he's dead!" he hissed, voice wavering. "I failed him. He trusted me, and what did I do? I should have said something while I still had the chance—I shouldn't have let him close himself off like that—"

"Sometimes you just have to let the people you care about work things out for themselves," Hisoka told him. Only after the words were out did he realize what a hypocrite he was for saying them. After all, if he had followed his own advice yesterday. . . .

What? Tsuzuki might have tried to hurt himself again because of something Muraki would have had the chance to tell him? "You couldn't foresee this."

"But if I had just been there for him," Jun was shaking his head, "if I had just made him talk to me, he wouldn't have gone mooning after Fujisawa and he wouldn't be dead right now."

"You don't know that—"

"I'm sure of it!"

Jun's words ricocheted off the walls of the stairwell like a gunshot, startling them both.

"You haven't replied to that message, have you?" Hisoka asked him when the silence had returned, and the boy beside him had returned to looking utterly defeated.

"No," Jun said slowly, though Hisoka didn't have to be an empath to tell he was holding something back. The idea of revenge _must_have occurred to Jun; he was only human.

"Good. Don't. He's trying to provoke you. You must not play into his game."

"Jesus," Jun breathed. "He's after me now? Is that what you're saying?"

"I don't know. What blood type are you?"

"O-positive. But what does that have to do with any—"

"Then he's not interested in you. Not really. You don't have what he needs."

Jun knitted his brows. "I don't understand. 'What he needs'? Saki, what are you talking about?"

"I can't explain it to you. I just need you to trust me on this." Please, Hisoka prayed silently, just shut up and trust me. He hated deceiving the boy like this, but there was no other way. Jun had to be made aware of the danger, but it was dangerous for him to have too much information. He would thank Hisoka for it later, if nothing happened to him in the meantime. Come to think of it, it probably wasn't healthy for Jun to think of him as a friend, either. "And I probably should have told you before, but I'd rather you didn't call me Saki. That name . . . doesn't exactly have good memories attached to it for me."

Jun's phone was still in Hisoka's grasp. As he spoke, he entered his own number into its phone book. "Here. That's my cell number. Call me if this guy tries to contact you again, or if he approaches you—"

"My dad's a cop," Jun told him shortly. "I think I know what to do about a fugitive suspect."

"Then promise me, Jun! Promise me you won't respond, you won't do anything he tells you to do, and you won't give him anything he can use against you."

As Hisoka turned to stare him in the eye, Jun narrowed his gaze. "You do know someth—"

"_Promise me._"

It felt like a long moment had gone by before Jun answered, and Hisoka saw his mission balancing on a precipice. Trust me, he wanted to say, even after everything he had done to deserve Jun's suspicions. He could deal with suspicion, as long as the other boy trusted him on this one matter.

Jun looked down at the screen of his cell phone, where Hisoka's number was still displayed. He wouldn't look Hisoka in the eye, but he did say, "I promise."

-o-

Tsuzuki had put on his trench coat when he left the hotel that morning, but it hardly seemed to matter now that he had been standing in the rain most of the day. It soaked his hair, running off the tips of wet strands into his eyes, and soaked his skin beneath his coat. Yet in a way that perhaps would have been seen as strange by most people, he welcomed that feeling and always had. As a shinigami, being wet and cold did not bother him. It did not bother him even when it threatened to chill him to the bones, though he would have been the first to cozy up to a lit fireplace had he been indoors. The cold autumn rain helped Tsuzuki's mind focus so that he hardly felt it—or perhaps it was fairer to say, to take his mind off the weather, he turned his thoughts wholly toward solving the larger problems at hand.

That trick was not working quite as well as he had hoped today. He could not get past his meeting with Muraki the day before, and the questions the doctor had raised within his mind. Why he would continue to bring up the subject of Tsuzuki's mysterious genetic makeup, for one. It wasn't like Muraki to make careless comments, so why return to that line of discussion Tsuzuki had thought exhausted, a given he had gotten past?

And what did Muraki's grandfather have to do with this school, or the resurrection of the Fujisawa boy and his crimes, or any of this mess the doctor had pulled him into?

_Why orchestrate such a complicated plot just to talk to me?_

The church bells rang the hour from across the school grounds, and shortly after, students in the uniform of the Sacred Heart school began filing out of the doors of the school building, opening umbrellas or pulling hoods or the collars of their jackets or book bags over their heads. As though the rain might make them melt, he thought melancholically as he watched them from the roof of the building.

He turned as the door creaked open behind him and his eyes met Hisoka's.

The boy lowered his own immediately. "I thought you wanted to case the school," he said as he made his way out into the rain toward Tsuzuki's side, burrowing his hands into his pockets. "In case anything happened. Kind of hard to keep an eye on things from up here, isn't it?"

Maybe his partner hadn't meant to sound as sarcastic as he did, but it still made Tsuzuki bristle. He still hadn't forgiven Hisoka for yesterday, not wholly, no matter how he tried to convince himself it was useless to hold a grudge. No matter how much he told himself he would have only done the exact same thing if his and Hisoka's situations had been reversed.

"I like to think I have a pretty good view."

He tried not to let those feelings show, but Hisoka knew him better than he knew himself sometimes.

The boy's mood softened. "How long have you been out here?" he said when he was beside Tsuzuki. "Look at you. You're soaked, Tsuzuki."

"I hadn't really noticed. Besides, it's not like it really matters for a shinigami."

"Idiot. You could still catch a chill and regret it later."

Hisoka pouted, and Tsuzuki had to smile at that. There was something nostalgic about the way they were now. They had stood in the rain like this when they were new partners, barely tested, and they decided aloud to give one another a proper chance. Nothing had really changed in the five years since, despite all that could have come between them. Weren't they just being petty to let this little thing make them doubt their trust for one another?

Then again, wasn't trust at the crux of the issue?

As though reading his mind—and perhaps he was—Hisoka began suddenly: "Tsuzuki, about what happened yesterday. . . . I just wanted to apologize properly—"

"Don't."

Hisoka blinked. "If you'd just let me say it," he began to murmur.

Tsuzuki's easy smile cut him off. "It isn't necessary, Hisoka. Really. You don't have anything to be sorry for."

But by the look on his face, Hisoka wasn't completely buying it. He could see right through that forced smile, and always had, though this time he chose not to call attention to that fact.

"Bastard," the boy said under his breath, though there was no resentment left in his person. "You know that if that invitation had been addressed to me, you wouldn't have let me go alone. You would have tailed me or something, too."

"Yes, though I might have been a little more discreet about it."

Hisoka turned to him, and the hurt look in his wide eyes made Tsuzuki start.

"Well, because I've been doing this job a lot longer than you have," he quickly backpedaled.

Though he hardly need have worried about the boy misunderstanding him. Hisoka looked down over the railing at the last stragglers to leave class. His gaze seemed so solemn, it took Tsuzuki by surprise when he said out of the blue, "'Because we're partners.'"

"What?"

"That's what you said to me then," Hisoka told him. "That time, after our first case together in Nagasaki, we were getting soaked just like this and I asked you why you came after me, even though you knew it was a set-up. 'Because you're my partner,' you said, or something like that." He crossed his arms as though taken with a sudden chill, but Tsuzuki didn't miss the faint smile that pulled at the corner of his mouth. "That was all I wanted to say."

Tsuzuki didn't know how to respond. It was true. He had said that, not knowing how its context would change over the next few years, with all the trials that those cases spent together would bring. Yet it always managed to ring true for his partnership with Hisoka, despite how many other relationships of his had failed. Why was that? What values had been entered to get the formula right this time? Perhaps that wasn't for either of them to question.

"Then again, I've never had a partner I had to take care of before," Hisoka added when Tsuzuki said nothing.

Tsuzuki started. "What do you mean?"

His partner sighed. "You dork. You said that that time, too. I was trying to make a joke, but I guess it flopped royally."

Tsuzuki snorted.

"Then we're good?"

"We're good," Tsuzuki agreed.

Even if, by the wary look on Hisoka's face, he still wasn't completely buying it.

"Jun received a text message from Fujisawa last night," Hisoka said as he leaned his back against the wet railing. Tsuzuki had to marvel at how quickly he could jump between personal matters and business. "Fujisawa told me something would happen if Muraki didn't get his way Sunday, so I'm thinking they might be trying to target him next."

Tsuzuki turned to him. "You're serious? Then why aren't you with him?"

"I've been thinking about it all afternoon, and Jun doesn't fit the pattern. He's not the right blood type and he can't stand even being in the same room with Fujisawa. Not only that, his death wouldn't be logical, and if there's anything we can say for sure about the recent murders, it's that they all had a certain logic behind their execution. Specifically to get us here."

"Yeah, but now we are here."

"I know." Hisoka furrowed his brows. "That's why I asked him if he would stay home for the evening."

"What did he say?"

"That he would follow my advice, after stopping by the police station on the way there. It's probably as safe a place as any, and apparently his father's a detective."

"Are you thinking of posting a watch at his house?"

Hisoka looked at him. "It wouldn't fit the pattern to attack him in his own home, either, but I don't want to leave him there with no protection. I figured at least that way we could concentrate our attention on downtown. It's very likely the message was just a ruse, to distract us from where those two really plan on striking. Fujisawa would do something like that."

"I wouldn't put it past Muraki, either," Tsuzuki agreed. "I'll call the Gushoushin and see if we can't pull another favor from them. As though I don't already owe them big time." His shoulders slumped a little at the prospect.

"Tsuzuki?"

Tsuzuki glanced over at his partner at the sudden doubt that had entered the boy's tone.

"If you were Jun," Hisoka asked him quietly, "would you trust me?"

"What reason would I have not to? You have his best interest at heart." But Tsuzuki knew as well as Hisoka did that was an ambiguous answer that meant nothing, supplied only when he couldn't think of a definite response one way or the other.

-o-

_Your friend Hiragawa was real sweet._

Jun stared at those words on his cell phone's screen until it went dark. Then he pressed the down button and stared at them some more.

_Real sweet._

_To the very end._

A shiver of disgust ran up his spine. As he read those words, he could all but hear his upperclassman speaking them in that cocky way of his that irritated Jun so much he could hardly stand it. He could picture Fujisawa's grin as though his friend's death were some great achievement to brag about. Knowing Fujisawa, he probably thought it was.

Jun couldn't be sure how much of the day he had spent just staring at that message for minutes on end. His eyes had begun to burn, but he couldn't help himself. The music and sound effects of the machines in the game center created a deafening cacophony around him that he barely registered. The lights and colors of Virtual-On's idle screen flashed across his face and the phone's as he sat slouched in the hard plastic chair, his shins propped up against the control board. He still had plenty of money left, but the game didn't interest him in the least aside from being the last place he knew of Toshio visited before he ended up in that alley.

It should have been me, he thought not for the first time. If I'd been here with Toshio that day, instead of that murderous bastard Fujisawa, he would still be alive.

Knowing that, just wondering what depravity Fujisawa's message referred to, as Jun read it over and over again, stoked his anger, and he clung to that with all his might. It became Jun's reason, his direction. He might have failed Toshio in life, but he would make up for it one way or another. He would get justice for Toshio if he had to sin against God to do it. No one else would. The police were doing a piss poor job of finding Fujisawa. He would have sworn they had given up trying, for all they had accomplished over the weekend. It was up to Jun to do it now, and the means was sitting right there in the palm of his hand.

"Sorry, Kurosaki."

He pressed the reply button with his thumb, and began typing.

-o-

A tinny, electronic version of the first few bars of "Ring of Fire" echoed off the tiled walls, and Fujisawa flicked the excess water from one hand as he reached for the cell phone lying on the edge of the tub.

He brought it toward his face and peered at the screen, and grinned. One new message.

It was from the Inoue kid. Took him long enough to reply. He must not have been able to bear it any longer, the thought of what Fujisawa had done to his friend, subtle though his taunts had been. If anything, Fujisawa was a little surprised he had waited so long to reply. Must have been the Catholic schooling in him, he mused, slowly painting itself over the sense of honor innate in Inoue's person. But it couldn't cover it completely, or forever.

Fujisawa situated himself more comfortably in the hot water and opened the message. He wanted to savor this.

There was only one line. Inoue did not mince words. WHAT DO YOU WANT? A clear enough invitation if Fujisawa ever read one.

And since the kid was asking so nicely, it would have been rude of him not to answer the question.

He had hardly begun to do so when the bathroom door slid open.

-o-

The feeling that something was amiss, the feeling of being intruded upon, was a slow one to shake when one has gotten used to coming home to an empty, quiet room.

It took a second for Kiyoko to relax when she arrived home to the sound of the television on in the main room, and the bathroom light shining through the cracked door. That's right, she had to remind herself, the Fujisawa boy was still here. It was only him. Though after that encounter between the boy and Muraki the afternoon before, she was hesitant to use the word "only" in conjunction with Fujisawa's name, as it seemed the quiet life she had tried to lead since her husband's death had come to a sudden dead-end with his sojourn here.

If she were quite honest, she had given up trying to feel sympathy for the boy, no matter how much he might deserve it. Now she just wished he would leave, and take his baggage that was Muraki Kazutaka with him.

She put her side to the door but did not open it. The sound of gently lapping water reached her ear from inside. Was it just her imagination, or the TV, or had she heard him murmuring something when she came in the front door?

"Fujisawa-san," she said sweetly enough, "I just got back. Can I get you a change of clothes?"

"I'm fine." A pause. The sound of him shifting in the tub to face the door. "Unless . . . maybe Mrs Komatsu would like to join me?"

Kiyoko closed her eyes. He had the kind of voice that could persuade a priest to break the seal of confession. Even if it no longer worked on her, and hadn't since he had looked at her the afternoon before like a worn-out rug. Still, she replied with such cool and perfected grace, "Perhaps another time," that she almost detected a note of genuine disappointment under his chuckled, "Suit yourself."

As Kiyoko proceeded into the main room, it felt as though a schoolgirl-like spring had entered her step, brought on by their short repartee. Stop it, she told herself, this isn't a game. But that lighthearted feeling was a little harder to defeat than the feeling of mindless physical attraction, as evidenced by the playful way she shrugged out of her coat and tossed it on the edge of the bed. What did she have to worry about anyway? The good doctor Muraki had promised her the boy would soon be taken off her hands.

Hands on her hips, she turned toward the television. The evening news was on, and along with it an annoying series of loud, rapid-fire advertisements that grated on her nerves even with the sound at this reasonable volume. Some would call her old-fashioned for it, but she never did care for TV, even as a child. Perhaps it was the way the hum of the screen felt like it was slowly drilling holes in her skull that had first turned her off. In any case, it was just another thing she could not understand about that boy's generation: the constant need for audio-visual stimuli, the short attention spans, and the fear of being left in silence. It was no wonder young people these days had no idea how to appreciate the arts. A noh drama would knock them out faster than a sleeping pill.

And leaving the set on while he was in the bath was just a ridiculous waste of energy. Kiyoko reached for the remote control that was sitting on the coffee table, but the book lying open beside it made her pause.

It was the same one Muraki had been reading the day before. She recognized it by the color of its binding. Fujisawa had shown some interest in it as well, but until now she had assumed it was only for academic purposes. But the boy was attending a Catholic school, and the symbol emblazoned on the cover was a Jewish one—though if she were honest, she could not say so concisely that it was that discrepancy and not something else that made her pick it up in curiosity.

She kept track of the page with her finger as she turned the book to face her. It had been turned to the story of Rabbi Loew and his golem.

She scanned the page, picking up foreign words in the Japanese translation. It said that in the sixteenth century, the rabbi, the Maharal of Prague, was supposed to have built his legendary man made out of clay, and brought it to life to protect the Jewish ghetto from attacks against its people. The rabbi, as the story went, a mystic scholar himself, performed an ancient ritual to summon the daemon Ashtaroth, who revealed to him the magic word that would bring his clay man to life when written upon its forehead. . . .

". . . local police are asking citizens to be on the lookout for a young man wanted as a suspect in the murder of a private school student last week. Investigators say an adolescent male going by the name Fujisawa—"

It was an automatic reaction to those words that made Kiyoko look up from the book to the television screen. But once she had, she found she could not turn her eyes away, except to quickly reach for the remote and turn down the volume.

". . . and was last seen wearing a gray uniform bearing the insignia of the Sacred Heart private Christian school," the news anchor continued, listing off physical characteristics as a photograph of the same boy who had spent the past weekend with her was displayed on the screen. "He was last seen by classmates Thursday, and police are urging anyone who might come into contact with the suspect not to confront him. They have reason to believe he may be armed. There has been no official statement substantiating rumors of a possible connection between the student's death and the recent 'Liver-taker' serial murder case, though we will continue to bring you any new information as it comes into the newsroom—"

"Anything interesting on, Mrs Komatsu?"

Kiyoko nearly jumped at the sound of Fujisawa's voice in the same room. She willed her heart that was suddenly hammering in her chest to slow. It would not have done good to let him know he made her nervous. It was only that for the first time she realized she had no idea what he might do. After all, if the news was to be believed, he had already killed one boy, and possibly those poor men she had read about in the paper as well. Hadn't he said something about hearing them inside his head just yesterday?

However, there was a significant difference between herself and those murdered men.

Flipping off the television set and putting down the remote, Kiyoko turned to face Fujisawa fearlessly. "Not particularly," she told him.

It was hard to believe he would have done anything to hurt her anyway, the way he was. He stood naked beside the foot of the bed, having probably hurried from the bath upon hearing his name on the television news. There was something _off_, however, even knowing what she did now, about his lack of modesty, something not right even for a cocky teenager. She averted her eyes.

"Get yourself a towel," she said. "You're dripping all over the carpet."

"Yes. Haven't I told you before to mind your manners with those who are showing you hospitality?"

Kiyoko started. It was Muraki who had spoken, as he followed the boy out of the bathroom, a towel in his hand. He pushed it toward Fujisawa, who had no choice but to take it, though his eyes remained on Kiyoko through the entire transaction, scrutinizing her every minute reaction through his glasses and the veil of his silver hair.

"Get dressed," he told the boy as he took a step toward her, and Kiyoko found herself unconsciously taking a step back. Fujisawa may have been wanted for murder, but it was that man alone who had the power to frighten her, no matter how unmoved she willed herself to remain. "We're leaving tonight."

Fujisawa uttered a sound of acknowledgment as he put the towel over his head.

"So soon?" Even in her dire situation, Kiyoko's sarcasm did not abandon her. Rather, she clung to it like one might cling to an unloaded gun. "Things were just getting interesting, Doctor. You never told me I would be harboring a killer."

A small, amused smile pulled at Muraki's lips. "Yes, I never had to tell you anything. You see, the beauty of women like you, Kiyoko, is your willingness to infer whatever you want to believe from the vaguest information given you." His gaze flickered briefly over Fujisawa. "I apologize for the boy's behavior here. And I do regret you couldn't have remained ignorant of his situation."

"What do you have to apologize for? Unless you plan on killing me now."

"Of course not. Oriya would be disappointed."

"You can rest assured I don't intend to inform the police," she told him defiantly anyway, the smile long gone from her lips. "But I cannot give you the same guarantee where my neighbors are concerned. Someone is bound to recognize him from the lobby. A young man of his looks has a tendency to stand out, even around here."

"I suspect as much myself," Muraki agreed as he turned to Fujisawa, who was tugging his school shirt over his shoulders. "In fact, I am counting on that. Much like yourself, he is an exemplary work of art. Wouldn't you say?"

As their gazes met, this time lingering upon one another, some tacit meaning passed between the two men that made Kiyoko's stomach turn again. There was something evil in it, she knew, even if she could not guess that evil's nature.

It made her turn her eyes from her company's faces. Instead, her gaze dropped to Fujisawa's legs, where the hot water of the bath had made the scars that crossed his body appear much more pronounced than they had in her dim bedroom the other day. She had not quite noticed before how the scar on his left hip seemed to circle around the entire leg, or how the one around his right knee effectively divided that leg into two sections—a thigh and a shin whose color on closer inspection did not _quite_ match. . . .

"My God," Kiyoko breathed as the answer came to her. _A work of art._ That was what Muraki had called him. But not like she had been. This work of art standing before her, if what impossibilities she feared were true, was more a collage than any living thing had a right to be.

"That's right, Kiyoko," Muraki said softly. "You can see the strings behind the illusion clearly, can't you, once your mind is opened to them."

"I thought his scars were signs of an abuse you were rescuing him from," she said in a low voice. "I only wish I had known sooner." She managed to tear her eyes away long enough to meet the doctor's gaze. "That abuser was you the whole time, Muraki. But I never suspected the Kazutaka I once knew to be capable of something so blasphemous—"

"Blasphemy?" Muraki laughed. "Is that what you would consider this superior product, this beautiful creature?"

He put one arm about Fujisawa, and his white hand cradled the boy's cheek. "Don't you like his legs?" he asked a speechless Kiyoko. "It's all right to admit it, Kiyoko, even if there are two decades between you in age. They were given to me by an old professor—his last gift to a favorite student before he died."

Muraki took one of the boy's hands in his own, fondly spreading the fingers across his palm. "He gave me these fingers as well," he said. His touch lingered on the outer two, which Fujisawa let him fondle like they did not even belong to him, and Kiyoko remembered the queer rings that had stuck in her mind the other day. "They are beautiful, aren't they? Their shape is nearly perfect. It's only a shame my professor could not find something that matched a little closer, but it was not as though I had the originals to work with. Someone," he said with a disapproving note, "had removed those and thrown them away before I ever got to the boy. If you ask me, _that_ is a blasphemous act."

Though she felt as though she might vomit, Kiyoko managed through gritted teeth, "What did you do to him?"

To her surprise, Muraki shot her a hurt look. Just as that seventeen-year-old boy had the year he lost his parents to unknown causes, and her foster brother had brought him innocently into the Mibu fold. If only Oriya had known then. . . .

"He was broken," he told her. "I merely repaired him."

"Why?"

"To see if it could be done."

Kiyoko's knees felt weak. She feared to move lest she start trembling and give herself away. But the scene before her appeared now as something out of a horror film, it was so unreal. Broken. Repaired. Oriya had used terminology like that once, to describe the women who had died mysteriously around his dear friend. The patients, the dates, the whores—"Are they nothing but dolls to him?" She hadn't understood then. She had not been able to. But looking at Fujisawa now, with his eyes downcast and a faint smile on his lips, his body as compliant to Muraki's touch as a mannequin's, she was beginning to see. Yes, and very clearly.

Muraki put his lips to the boy's crown once again. She heard him murmur, "Finish getting dressed," before releasing the boy.

Over his arm, he carried the clothes Fujisawa had been wearing earlier that day, and these he set down on the edge of the bed, telling Kiyoko as he did so: "I appreciate your generosity during these past few days, Kaede-san. I will not forget it." She hated with every ounce of her being the way he addressed her like that, so full of intent—the way he would not let her forget the past, and what they had been to one another then. "I suggest returning what you bought the boy if they will let you. He won't be needing them any longer."

Kiyoko made no attempt to reply to his false geniality. Her jaw trembled, and she clutched the book still in her hand tighter.

"How—"

He turned expectantly at the sound of her voice.

"How can you stand there and speak of all this with such calm indifference, Doctor Muraki?" she said, her voice cracking. "Is it true after all, the Kazutaka I knew is dead? Has he been dead all along?"

He did not answer, and his silence was all she needed. It was the best affirmation he could give her. It fueled the sense of righteousness roiling within her.

"That boy," she cried as she pointed the book at him, "is nothing less than an abomination, and you a monster for making him! Is this all he is to you? Your revenge? Your golem?" The side of her mouth curled up and a bitter laugh arose from somewhere inside her. She threw the book down on the carpet, not caring how the two might look at her for doing so. "Well, damn your little _project_, Muraki, damn both of you to hell! I am not impressed. I'm disgusted! Frankly I don't know what they see in you that could be worth one iota of love, Oriya and Ukyo. That boy—"

She shook her head at Fujisawa, who was fixing the school uniform he had come to her in, staring at her for once without the faintest trace of amusement.

"Damn you for involving us in these selfish games of yours," she growled at Muraki. "You think you're so blessed, so righteous, just like your father did, and his father before him. But it isn't righteousness, Muraki, it isn't God that gives you the right to go against nature: It's your own foolish arrogance. Such arrogance! And how many innocent human beings must take the brunt of it before you will call yourselves content? I'm beginning to believe that brother of yours had the right idea in erasing the entire Muraki family from the face of the Earth. Would that he had only gotten rid of you first—"

A yelp of surprise escaped the facade she had been trying so hard to control, as no sooner had those words left her mouth than Muraki was at her side, his fingers around her wrist gripping it so tightly her skin turned bloodless white beneath them. She stumbled backwards against the arm of the couch, but he did nothing more. She could see the muscles clenching in his jaw at this close range she had avoided for so long, and make out the tiny wrinkles of scars around his right eye through the veil of his hair. More than anything in his gaze itself—more than the murderous intent that flickered across it, that must have been the last thing those women less fortunate than herself had ever seen—more than the scars that had crossed Fujisawa's own body, the grotesqueness of that one partially-concealed eye terrified her.

It was not natural. In its shape where the echoes of laboratory nightmares, of cursed experiments brought to life that no horror movie could ever conjure up, nor any government condone in even its darkest time. The hideous faces of ghosts and demons that populated the most macabre kabuki scene were merely imitations of the kind of evil that had shaped and reshaped that eye. It frightened her like few things in this world had the power to, yet Kiyoko could not look away.

If he killed her now, that would be the image she took to her grave.

But he did not do anything further to hurt her. She could see it in his gaze, the change slowly coming over it as he gained control of the anger that lay buried deep beneath his calm facade.

"Do not speak to me of my brother," he hissed to her so low it seemed to rattle inside her ear like the sound of the tide in a seashell. Then, as easily as that, he released her.

It took Kiyoko but a second to recover herself, and when she had, she pointed to the door and told the two: "Get out of my home. Now."

"Believe me, I am only too happy to do so," Muraki said, his coolly polite air returning as though nothing unbecoming had happened. "Fujisawa, are you ready? Those servants of Yomi will soon be returning to us."

For a moment, Kiyoko would have sworn the boy's stare held something of pity for her as it lingered on her face. She tried to hold on to it, tried to tacitly will the boy to embrace that kernel of doubt that showed in his expression and turn away from Muraki before it was too late for him. But could that expression not have been merely a product of her wistful imagination? The next moment it was gone, replaced by that lazy, cocky grin of his that was almost as disturbing as Muraki's.

"I'm ready when you are, Sensei," Fujisawa said as he shrugged on his uniform jacket.

Like a soldier shrugging on his armor, she could not help thinking.

"Then this is where I bid you adieu, Kaede-san," Muraki said over his shoulder as he followed the boy to the door. "And may Fate never conspire to bring us together again."

Then Kiyoko was left alone. If not for the boy's clothes and the book lying in a distraught position on the floor it might have seemed as though she had imagined the whole thing, and that she had been alone in her hotel room the entire time. The silence she had thought herself craving now seemed so cold.

-o-

"Thanks a bunch, Imai. I hope you're happy."

A folded newspaper soon followed that sarcastically uttered remark, dropped unceremoniously on the desk beside his work.

Imai glanced over at the headline on the front page. It read, NEW DETAILS ON MURDERED YOUTH—WAS HE THE LIVER-TAKER KILLER? So what, he thought. He and his partner had been suggesting a connection between the two cases all along. So the papers got it a little wrong. What did that have to do with him? He looked up.

And into the displeased face of Sato, one of the lead detectives on the so-called Liver-taker case. Apparently it was a big deal indeed to him.

Imai pushed the paper aside. "What're you talking about? I had nothing to do with this."

"No? Why do I find that hard to believe? You and Tubbs over there have been looking to get your paws on a high-profile case since day one. My partner and I have been busting our asses trying to solve these murders, and you two do-nothings come in after a nice weekend off saying you've got all the answers? Well, forgive me if I'm just a little bit skeptical."

Asai looked away from his computer screen at that, his cup of coffee paused half-way to his lips.

Clearing his throat, Imai rose calmly from his seat. "First of all," he said, "I haven't said one word to the press, nor do I plan to because, as you should know by now, I don't work that way. They must have figured out this angle all by themselves. It couldn't've been hard. There are enough similarities between the two cases for anyone to draw their own conclusions.

"Besides," he added for good measure, unable to keep the smugness completely out of his tone, "I never suggested our victim was your perp. I said he was the latest victim in your case. Big difference, I think you'll agree."

"The DNA from the livers we recovered from our suspect's place of residence should prove it one way or the other," Asai added from his seat. "Initial testing has already shown that the livers were all from donors with type-AB blood, same as our vic. I have no doubt when DNA does come back, you'll find that four of them match your victims."

Sato folded his arms across his chest. "You suggesting I have more than four victims?"

Imai fixed him a stupid look and nodded. "Yeah. That's exactly what I'm suggesting. And ours makes number five."

"That kid didn't have his liver cut out."

"Yet. Maybe the killer hadn't gotten around to it. Or maybe he didn't need it after all."

"He was after blood," Asai agreed with a nod.

Sato rolled his eyes.

"Look," Imai told him straight. "You may not want to believe it, but we are working the same case. Sooner or later the chief is going to have to recognize that, whether you like it or not. The body of evidence is overwhelming. We're both dealing with the same sick son of a bitch."

"I heard you tried to convince him to put out an APB for a boy who's been dead for four years," Sato said, still unconvinced. A wry grin pulled up one corner of his mouth. "The press is going to have a field day with that one when word gets out. That's not a threat or anything; I'm just saying."

Damn. Imai hadn't been aware that information had gotten around. He knew his partner didn't care if people thought him a little looney, but that kind of thing didn't exactly help their credibility. He shrugged anyway. "So what?" he said to Sato, trying to sound as indifferent as possible. "Asai and I just follow where the evidence leads us. We can't help if that happens to be right to your serial murder investigation."

Sato just shook his head. After a moment, all he could come up with was, "You smug—" The expletive was omitted. It made Imai grin. "You'd just better make sure your leads hold water before you butt into my investigation again. Is that clear?"

"Crystal." Smug and justified.

With that, Sato turned and left, and Imai allowed the grin to drop from his face. He glanced back down at the newspaper and the glaring mistake in that headline: The press wasn't aware they were blaming the victim. No, he wasn't happy about this at all. "I could use another cup of coffee," he told Asai under his breath, to which his partner replied with a generic, "Okay," and turned back to his screen.

God, Asai could be dense. Imai sighed and tried again. "Could I talk to you for a moment?"

Reluctantly, Asai pushed himself away from his desk and followed his partner to the break room down the hall.

He listened patiently while Imai grumbled about his frustration with Sato and poured himself another cup of coffee, only interrupting to say, "You know he wouldn't have said anything if he and his partner where making half as much headway on that Liver-taker case. We're making them look bad."

"Yeah, I know," Imai sighed. "But it's not like everything is peachy on our side either."

"My theories so far might have been a little on the outlandish side, but we're not the ones using a dead boy's name as a cover to commit murder."

"And my misplacing my badge didn't help us win any points either. I still can't believe I did that." Imai paused in thought after he had replaced the coffee pot in the maker. "No, I really _can't_ believe it. This is going to sound crazy, but have you gotten the feeling since we took this case that someone has been actively trying to prevent us from solving it?"

"Crazy?" Asai echoed.

Imai rolled his eyes. "Look who I'm asking. Never mind."

"Actually, now that you mention it—"

That line of conversation did not get much farther, however, as before Asai could finish, Inoue's son appeared in the break room's doorway. "I-I'm sorry to interrupt," he began. "I wasn't eavesdropping or anything, just so you know."

Though Imai didn't see what was so humorous, Asai smiled. All Imai could think was how terrible the high schooler looked, as though he hadn't slept in days. Losing a friend at that age was hard on anyone, but when it was to murder, it had to be infinitely worse. If it was awkward for him, being the detective on the boy's friend's case and not having any new information to reassure him with, then Imai could only imagine how awkward it was for Jun to meet them here like this. He and Asai must have looked to him like they were just loafing around, instead of being out there searching for Hiragawa's murderer. Was there even any way to explain, in a situation such as theirs, that they were doing everything they could, when everything still wasn't good enough?

"You looking for your father?" Imai asked him.

"Yeah." The kid sounded distracted. "He said he was going to be working late on a case. I thought I could drop by and talk to him about something, but I must have missed him."

"He just stepped out to get something to eat. He should be back in fifteen or so if you want to wait." It was a long shot—what opportunities Imai had had to speak with Jun in the past had been frosty to say the least, and his behavior over the last week hadn't helped things—but he couldn't let the boy go without asking. "Unless, of course, it's urgent. In which case, do you want to tell us what's going on? We'd keep anything you told us in the strictest confidence—"

"Not really. I'd rather keep it between me and my dad."

"Is it about Fujisawa?"

Imai might have imagined it, but Jun seemed to start when he said that name. He quickly shook his head, however, and told them: "No. I wish I could say I'd seen him or anything, but. . . . I'm just gonna leave him a note and go."

So saying, Jun pointed his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the detective's lockers. He had visited his father enough to become almost as familiar with the department's layout as any of the officers there.

He turned to head that way, but Imai stopped him by speaking his name.

"Yeah," Jun said.

"Take care of yourself, huh? We're going to catch this guy. I promise you that."

Jun didn't say anything at first. He looked down, and when he did speak it was with a patience he hadn't shown Imai before. "Thank you, Mr Imai. That means a lot to me, coming from you."

The boy gave an awkward wave and departed.

And Imai could not shake the feeling that this wasn't like Inoue's son at all. "There's something wrong with that kid."

"Of course there is," Asai told him as he handed his partner his mug. "His good friend was murdered and he probably feels like we aren't doing enough to set it right."

It was something more personal than that, Imai thought. If Jun's only problem was the police's lack of action, he would have made that clear. He would have taken it out on Imai. No, something else was on his mind.

But couldn't it just be teenage angst? Maybe it wasn't really as big a deal as Imai's instincts wanted him to believe. "Yeah. Yeah, that must be it," he concurred with his partner.

"I can understand his frustration. The deeper we dig the more bizarre this case gets."

"Talk to me, Asai. What have you uncovered this time?"

"I didn't want to say anything in front of Sato," Asai said to the other's nod, "in case it compromised our own investigation, but I suppose it will come out sooner or later. I've been digging into the career of the late Dr Satomi and, I have to tell you, his resume reads like the reading list of a medical thriller book club."

"I'm listening."

"Well, I mentioned before that his name sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't remember from where? Turns out Satomi is a name synonymous with infamy in the scientific community, but you wouldn't know it unless you were keeping up on cloning research."

"You're saying Satomi was into cloning."

"No, Imai, he was a leading researcher in the field, one of the very top experts in the country and a self-proclaimed disciple of Dr Muraki Yukitaka—who, you might remember, had a reputation as something of a medical maverick himself during the war. Satomi practically worshiped the man as a god. In fact, the one thing he's most well-known for is playing God—or at least believing he could. His career piqued in the nineteen-eighties when he suggested in his published articles that he was close to growing viable human organs for transplant from cloned stem cells, but after about 'ninety-one, 'ninety-two he all but dropped off the scientific community's radar. When he committed suicide, he was teaching at an escalator school in Kyoto, publicly shunned by his colleagues."

"How far the mighty have fallen."

"You can say that again. It didn't add up. Why would a man with so much promise suddenly hit a wall and incur so much wrath? There had to be a good reason, so I dug a little deeper, and I discovered what the late doctor was really working on. His life's mission, if you'd believe it, was to create an entirely new individual from separate, artificially grown parts. Apparently this had something to do with his obsession with Dr Muraki, but I couldn't find a connection. Much of Muraki's career is still classified, if the information hasn't disappeared altogether from the face of the earth."

"Let me see if I understand you right," Imai said, making a whoaing gesture with his hands. "Satomi was putting together a human being from parts he had created in a lab—like Frankenstein and his monster? You're right. I don't believe it."

"I find it difficult myself, but it looks as though he might have been successful. Or at least partially. He was denounced officially as an affront and an embarrassment to the scientific community for his unethical procedures. Official documents are vague, but it sounds, from the comments from some of his most vehement attackers, that they might have actually seen this being he was working on. They demanded that he destroy his project and all related samples or risk being discredited completely as a doctor of medicine."

"The scientist's kiss of death."

"It certainly gives him a motive for committing suicide. Better to die while your reputation is intact. Although, then again, he had no shortage of enemies among his colleagues and their political backers."

"But I imagine the technology he was working on would have won him favor from at least one faction in the Diet," Imai said. "You're talking about healthy organs ready for transplant without the moral complications of waiting for a suitable donor to die. Top-level politicians, bureaucrats, and the corporate elite are always the first to grab at whatever new promise of eternal life comes along, and it sounds like Satomi's research had far-reaching applications that would have been realized within his own lifetime."

Asai nodded and took a sip of coffee.

"But that still doesn't help _us_. What is his connection to our killer? _Someone_ had been living in his house, and I'm hard-pressed to believe one high school student would have had the connections to pull this off alone."

"There is one other name that grabbed my attention," Asai said.

"And what is that?"

"Interestingly enough, Muraki. Muraki Kazutaka—that is, _Doctor_ Muraki Kazutaka, the grandson of Yukitaka and a graduate student of Satomi's whom the late doctor seems to have been particularly fond of. He first starts showing up in the mid-eighties as a footnote in some of Satomi's papers. But a few years later he's practically a co-author. I skimmed through some of their joint projects, and, I'm no scientist, but I noticed a significant difference between them and Satomi's solo work. In the methodology, the rate of experiments' success—even the presentation of the data. That kid was remarkably brilliant. It led me to wonder if he wasn't responsible for Satomi's _other_ achievements as well, if only indirectly."

Imai found himself standing still as a suspicion entered his mind he could not shake. "What became of this Muraki?"

Asai shook his head, which didn't bode well. "He had a practice at his grandfather's old clinic in Tokyo until a few years ago when he up and disappeared. The last time he was spotted was in Kyoto, a few days before Satomi's death. From the police report, it sounds like he went to pay his old professor a visit."

"For old time's sake?" Imai huffed out of the side of his mouth. "I'm not buying that. Don't tell me he's dead, too."

Asai knitted his brows as he looked at his partner, but Imai knew him well enough to know it was far from a look of suspicion, but a sign they were thinking on the same wavelength. "A body was never found."

"Asai, I could kiss you," Imai said over his shoulder as he hurried out the door.

Asai deadpanned as he followed, "Tell me you're joking."

"Then let me just say I don't know what I would have done without you." He cracked his partner a rare smile as he said, "Muraki Kazutaka has just jumped straight to the top of our list of suspects."

-o-

"Do you remember how to set a selective barrier like I taught you?"

Fujisawa looked up from the small vial of blood that had been placed in his hand, that in the faint light of the darkened building looked as black as oil, and into Muraki's eyes. Never had they looked so much like Izuru's than at that moment, holding in them that combination of resignation and determination that Fujisawa had once admired and despised so much. "Yes," he answered.

"Then you understand that once it has been set, the man who possesses that DNA will not be able to cross the threshold, but nor will I. There will be no going back. You'll be on your own, Fujisawa."

"I understand perfectly, Sensei, and I'm ready. I have only one regret."

"M-m? And what is that?"

Fujisawa smiled.

"That I was not able to wear the colors of Saint Michel tonight."

-o-

The rain was really coming down now. The light showers of earlier that day had given way to a full-fledged downpour, and the local news stations predicted a thunderstorm to be rolling in within the hour. Jun could hardly ask for a more appropriate cover. He wasn't completely sure he believed in fate, or the idea many of his classmates subscribed to that God invested his efforts in the lives of individuals who prayed hard enough. But it did feel in some strange way as though he had been given this small window of opportunity in which even the weather was on his side, and he would be a fool if he did not take full advantage of it.

He could see the facade of the Sacred Heart church across the street. The uplighting that brightened it made it look almost threatening in the eerie dark imposed early by the rain clouds.

Beyond that, he could make out the windows in the upper storey of the school building. Its classrooms were dark, the cleaning staff already gone home, but somewhere up there was Fujisawa. His last text message to Jun said as much. _It's not what I want_, he had written, _but what you want. If you want justice for your friend, come to class after dark. I'll be waiting._

Now all that was left for Jun was to work up the courage to do what he knew he had to. The pistol he had taken from his father's locker back at the station sat heavy in his waistband at the small of his back. Stupid, he mentally chided his old man as he shut his eyes. His father tried to do right, when he was actually home—taking Jun to a shooting range as his idea of bonding was just one example of his awkward attempts—but he just didn't get it. The whole father thing had never been his strong suit, not like playing the gangster and pushing other mobsters around. Jun loved him, of course, but he should have known better than to use his son's birthday as his combination. As a cop, but moreover as a father, he should have known better.

Fujisawa's image drifted to the fore of his mind again, and he clenched his jaw. This may be the last time he would ever see those buildings from the outside, Jun thought. One way or another. Once he moved out from beneath this awning and into the rain, once he crossed the street, that was it. There would be no turning back.

He glanced back down at his cell phone and exited out of Fujisawa message, into his phone book where Kurosaki's number waited patiently. His thumb didn't seem to want to do it, but he willed himself to push the call button.

He took a deep breath as he put the phone to his ear and waited for the ring.

Perhaps the most painful part of all of this was that in order to redeem himself with one friend, he had to betray another.

-o-

Tsuzuki didn't look up when Hisoka manifested beside him on the rooftop. He didn't even seem to notice, his attention was fully trained on the evening foot traffic moving up and down Shimotori and Nishi-Ginza.

Until Hisoka said, "Your dinner, Tsuzuki." He took a plastic container out of a plastic shopping bag and held it out to his partner.

Only then did Tsuzuki look up at him. "Oh." He managed a small smile. "Thank you, Hisoka."

He glanced at the multiple price tags on the top of the box of grocery store sushi as Hisoka handed him a pair of chopsticks as well, and his smile grew wider. "You held out for the lowest price, didn't you?"

The faintest blush colored the boy's face. "That doesn't make it any less fresh, you know. Besides, you're the one who just had to have sushi."

"I know." He just liked to tease Hisoka. Whatever raised his spirits, the boy thought. "And I don't appreciate it any less."

Hisoka took a seat next to him on the concrete of the rooftop and dug into the bag for his own prepackaged dinner. Both their gazes turned automatically to the road, where people hurried back and forth under the rain, many hiding their individuality beneath the canopy of an open umbrella. At least they two were dry for the moment, though, underneath the narrow bit of overhang from the roof of the building next to theirs. The rain dripping off its eaves made a harsh splashing sound as it hit the pavement, the very sound of an urban wasteland despite the myriad voices of the crowd drifting up from below, and it was the glow of neon lights that lit their tasteless dinners as they ate.

"Have you seen anything suspicious so far?" Hisoka asked Tsuzuki.

"No sign of Muraki or Fujisawa, or anything that would look like their doing."

"Yeah. Same here."

Hisoka had asked hoping to take his mind off of their surroundings—the night traffic, so stressing for him their first night in town, was now strangely more so under this oppressive rainfall—but he had no such luck.

"I have seen a lot of students pass by, though," Tsuzuki said slowly, as though he really didn't want to but could not keep his thoughts to himself. "I hadn't really given much thought before to what Wakaba said last week about 'hooking up'—beyond what applied to our case, that is—but. . . ." He shook his head. "I guess I never paid close attention to your generation before. Not that I go around like some people, complaining about how nothing's the way it used to be, but sometimes I still have to remind myself this isn't the Taisho period. Young people these days don't seem to mind playing a stranger for his money, or being treated like a sexual object. In my day," he chuckled at the phrase, "anyone who did that would be run out of town on the shame train."

"I don't know if that's a fair generalization," Hisoka said.

"No. It probably isn't. It's just that watching these girls approach random men they don't even know, some of them who you know can't be more than thirteen, I can't help wondering how hopeless they must have to be about their own futures to put themselves in such a situation."

The hopelessness in his own voice touched Hisoka, and made him replace the bite of salad that had been halfway to his mouth. Sometimes he could swear Tsuzuki was more empathic than he was.

"I'm not so sure they see it that way," he said, trying to think back to his classmates at Sacred Heart, who had unconsciously started projecting the moment they heard he read fortunes. "They're mostly just thinking about the money and what they're going to buy with it. They see themselves as entrepreneurs, not prostitutes. But then again, I'm sure girls' concepts of self-image and propriety have changed significantly since when you were young."

"Maybe," Tsuzuki drawled before taking another bite. But it did not sound like he found Hisoka's rationale particularly comforting, or satisfactory. He said again when he had swallowed: "But even that's a little disturbing. Isn't it? That they're _not_ thinking things through all the way. I was thinking of Hiragawa. And even Fujisawa, to some extent, and his classmate who killed himself back at Saint Michel. It was precisely the same way there, too. They were so focused on getting the one thing they thought they wanted, they gave up any sense of there being more to live for. Okazaki was even willing to throw his life away. Now, you can't tell me this case and that one don't make you worry about their generation. I mean." Tsuzuki sighed. "When you were in school, Hisoka, did you ever get the feeling, either yourself or from your classmates, that there was no future for you?"

Perhaps, being dead, he wasn't the best one to ask, but Hisoka lowered his dinner to his lap and tried to give the question some serious thought. He feared it would be painful to take himself back to the time he was alive, and remember how those closest to him had gradually closed themselves off, surrounding themselves with walls of fear and hate. The fact was, though, that he didn't feel much of anything anymore, one way or the other. And he wasn't sure which was worse.

"I don't know, Tsuzuki," he finally said. "I was homeschooled for much of what I do remember, and even then the memories I have of my life have always been rather hazy since my death. But I think those are feelings expressed by every generation to some extent. Didn't Mishima write about these same sorts of worries you're describing back in the fifties and sixties? And before that it was Tanizaki, and Soseki—heck, even during the Tokugawa era—"

"All right, I see your point."

"Maybe every young person wonders if they're living in the worst of times. Then when they grow old, they look back on their youth as a purer time, and wonder how the young people today are going to get by without them. But I do understand what you're trying to say," Hisoka acquiesced as he picked up his chopsticks again. "Maybe my generation has just given up so much hope, they figure they might as well make the most fun out of whatever is left."

He hadn't really meant what he said, but he couldn't help being moved by the sincerity in Tsuzuki's words as he breathed: "What a sad way of putting it."

There had to be something to what Tsuzuki was saying, even if Hisoka couldn't quite grasp it himself. He did not have Tsuzuki's advantage of being born an outsider to these times looking in. No matter how removed his family had been from it, this era and its nuances were nonetheless ingrained in his existence. He wasn't sure if his partner was providing him with the hints, but Hisoka's own thoughts drifted toward technology, and its huge leaps and bounds of advances that were the villains of so many thrillers, and with good reason. Computers and telecommunications—the very advancements that had saved Gensoukai from extinction were supposed to make connecting in this world of the living easier, but instead had the tendency to close people off from one another. Even the food they were eating was a product of that ethic of speed, ease and convenience, but that didn't make it good. In fact, its quality suffered as a result.

It was that kind of society that people like Muraki were in rebellion against, Hisoka couldn't help thinking, but it shared some responsibility for giving birth to them as well.

He suppressed a shiver, and turned his thoughts forcefully from that man, whose very name was an impediment to his concentration. "Maybe it is," he said to Tsuzuki, "or maybe you should just forget what I said. Who knows if there's any truth to it, or if the morale of young people is just something that naturally ebbs and flows with the state of the economy."

He heard Tsuzuki smile beside him.

"You always have a way of telling people just what they need to hear, don't you, Hisoka?"

"I didn't mean it like that!" Suddenly irritated, Hisoka jabbed his chopsticks into his dinner. What was Tsuzuki trying to say? That all those things Hisoka had said to reassure him over the years had been only that and nothing more: empty reassurances? Was this his way of accusing Hisoka of using his empathic abilities to manipulate him?

Or was it he, Hisoka, who was jumping to conclusions, putting ulterior meaning into Tsuzuki's words that had never been there? He hated knowing that was a very real possibility. In all their years together, from each life-and-death situation that had shaped what they were, had he learned nothing? After everything that could have pulled them apart and didn't, were they still unable to escape suspicion in their partnership?

Before Hisoka could attempt to explain himself, however, a ring tone he recognized as Tsuzuki's startled them both. Balancing his food on his knees, Tsuzuki dug into his pocket for the phone. "Gushoushin," he told Hisoka as he pressed the answer button.

"Checking in?"

Tsuzuki shrugged. "Tsuzuki speaking," he said brightly into the receiver.

Hisoka was ready to turn his own attention back to dutifully eating his dinner. He could just make out Gushoushin's words coming tinny through the small cell phone speaker and they made him pause. "Tsuzuki!" The librarian sounded like he was trying to catch his breath. "Forgive my brother and me, but something urgent came up and we only arrived at your boy's house a short time ago—"

"That's all right," Tsuzuki tried to calm him down. "Just tell me the kid is doing all right. No one's moved over there, have they?"

"That's just the thing!" The Gushoushin sounded like he was going to burst into tears. "He wasn't here when we arrived!"

"What do you mean?"

Hisoka turned to face his partner. But just as he opened his mouth to ask him what was going on, his own phone rang. He put it to his ear before he could read the number of the incoming call, but it was bound to be the office anyway. No one else had this number. And the timing couldn't be any worse.

"Hello?" he answered.

"Saki? —I'm sorry. Kurosaki."

Hisoka started. That was Jun's voice. He jumped to his feet, dinner forgotten. "Jun, is that you?" He exchanged looks with Tsuzuki, who told the Gushoushin to hold on the line. "Where are you? Are you all right?"

"What?" The other boy sounded confused, distracted. "Er, yeah. I'm fine. I just called to say thank you. For everything you've done. It might not seem like a lot, just listening to what I had to say, but I really did appreciate it."

"I'm glad to hear it, Jun, but where the hell are you? I told you to go home!"

"I really do think we could have been friends under different circumstances."

What kind of answer was that? Hisoka tightened his grip on the phone. Exactly the kind of answer he feared. But like watching a crystal vase tumbling toward the floor, he could think of nothing to say or do to change what the other boy was telling him. The feeling of powerlessness was overwhelming.

"I just wanted you to know that," Jun was saying so low that Hisoka could barely make out his words above the clanging of bells in the background. "Before it all comes out different in the morning. I know if anyone would understand, it would be you. I hope you can forgive me, but there's something I have to do."

"Wait! Just tell me where you are so I can come to you!" Hisoka yelled into the phone. Already he was afraid he could feel the other boy drifting out of his reach. "You promised me you weren't going to do anything stupid, Jun! Jun? Let's talk about this—"

But the line went dead and he was disconnected. It took all of Hisoka's self control not to throw the cell phone down on the concrete and shatter it in his frustration. That would have accomplished nothing. He swore under his breath instead.

"He's been talking to Fujisawa," Tsuzuki guessed.

"That bastard must have known just what buttons to push. Jun doesn't realize he's walking into a trap!"

"I wouldn't be so sure of that."

Hisoka looked up at him in surprise.

"Where is he now?" Tsuzuki asked him. "Would he say?"

Hisoka shook his head slowly. He furrowed his brows. "The bells, though. . . ." He glanced at the phone's face again, where the digital letters displayed the time. It was just past the hour. "They could have been the Sacred Heart church's bells. Shit. He went back to the school!"

Without another word he took off in that direction with Tsuzuki close behind him. The cold rain had him drenched almost immediately, soaking his jeans as his hurried footsteps splashed up water from quickly forming puddles, but he hardly noticed. More than anything else he was aware of the trickling away of time, and it was not on his side. This is my fault, his conscience screamed. If it were not for me, if I hadn't gotten caught by Muraki, if I hadn't followed Tsuzuki, Jun wouldn't be in this mess. And if I don't get to him in time. . . .

His grip tightened around the cell phone still held in his hand as he ran, as though it were his final tether to that boy, the only connection he had that had any chance of keeping Jun safe. Hisoka focused his gaze on the landmarks that pointed the way to the school. He could not afford another innocent death on his account. Neither could Tsuzuki. Nor could Hisoka afford the fallout if such a thing were to happen to his partner.

If only Jun had trusted him.

He slid to a stop outside the church on the far corner of the grounds, Tsuzuki close behind. The same thought occurred to them both. The grounds looked completely deserted for the night. "He's not here."

Hisoka redialed Jun's number. It rang and rang, eventually going to the voice mail service. He huffed in frustration. "He's got to be around here somewhere," he said as he and Tsuzuki headed toward the school building. "This is where he called from. I'm sure of it."

The doors leading into the school building were unlocked, and Hisoka was sure no janitor would have left them that way. Traces of emotion like the after-image of the sun burnt into the retina flowed through him as he touched the handle. Anger. Regret. Determination. Resignation. Jun must have come this way, but how long ago and where he was now Hisoka could not say from a mere touch.

He tried calling again once inside. If Jun were close by, even if he would not answer, there was a slight chance they would be able to locate him by his ring tone.

But this time Hisoka got his voice mail immediately. "He's turned off his phone," he muttered to Tsuzuki, and swore under his breath.

"Let's hope that's all it is."

"Jun?" Hisoka called out. He knew it was a potentially risky move that might give away his presence, but the other boy's safety was more important to him now. Unlike himself, Jun was mortal. "Jun, it's Kurosaki Hisoka! If you can hear me, give me a sign and let me know where you are!

"Please," Hisoka added under his breath, "let me know you're okay."

Only the sound of their footsteps on the laminate of the hallway floors replied. Tsuzuki followed close behind him, putting his head in each room they passed, but each one was dark and empty. There was no sign of human life anywhere.

They reached the end of the hall. On one side were the double doors of the library, and on the other, stairs led up to the second floor and down into the basement. "We should split up," Hisoka said impatiently. "We can cover more ground that way."

He was surprised when Tsuzuki shook his head. "No way. If this is a trap, I'm not leaving your side."

It struck Hisoka as hypocritical that he would say that, after what had happened just the day before, but he suppressed the strong urge to call attention to that fact. "Don't be ridiculous! Time is of the essence, here, Tsuzuki. Who knows what could happen to him while we're searching the wrong end of the school. If something happened, and one of us could have prevented it. . . ."

Hisoka shook his head. "If something happened. . . ." That could not be an option.

As though on cue, a loud bang split the air and ricocheted through the building.

The two looked at one another. For half of a second, Hisoka wondered if it could have been the first crack of thunder signaling the predicted storm, the aftershock of a particularly close flash of lightning. But there had been no light, and he could not convince himself it was anything other than what he knew without a doubt it was.

Gunfire.

"That came from the second floor," Hisoka said, and dashed up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He heard Tsuzuki tell him to wait from behind, as he recovered and tried to follow, warning him they had to be cautious, but Hisoka paid his partner no attention. Jun couldn't afford for them to wait. For all they knew, they might have already wasted precious seconds. Though Hisoka's legs felt heavy with dread, but he pressed on for that boy's sake, pausing only when he had reached the landing to get his bearings.

The echo of the gunshot continued to ring in his ears, disorienting him even more than the darkness. Whether the sound was bouncing off the cold, thin walls or only amplified by his empathy, he could not tell. The hallway was empty. The bang could have come from any one of the classrooms for all the school told him. But instinct said otherwise.

When he neared, he saw the door to 2-C was left open.

Hisoka halted at the threshold, reaching inside his jacket for a fuda. The scene before him confirmed his worst fears.

The desks had been pushed to the back of the room for the cleaning staff, and against their dam of laminated tabletops and steel legs lay Jun's motionless form, with Fujisawa crouched over him.


	7. Evil and a heathen

"Wait! Hisoka!" Tsuzuki called out when Hisoka took off up the stairwell after the source of the gunshot. "Let me come with you. We don't know what's going on up there." But he might as well have been talking to a wall for all the attention Hisoka paid him.

In fact, it was as if he had run into a wall when he tried to follow his partner up the stairs. He got halfway to the landing when he was bodily repelled by some invisible force. He stumbled down a step. When he recovered, he tested the barrier. It was not solid like an actual wall, but seemed to catch him like a taut net and spring back. Either way, it would not allow him to climb any further. And when he attempted to teleport, the upper floors were a black void to him he could not gain access to.

"Hisoka—" he began again, but any attempt to reach his partner this way was futile. Besides which, Hisoka was on a mission. Given a choice between a mortal's life and his own, he would without a thought choose the former, just as Tsuzuki would.

As for the barrier in the stairwell, Tsuzuki had seen this kind of work before. It was particular about who could and could not get through, seeing how Hisoka had managed to penetrate it just fine, and there was no doubt in Tsuzuki's mind as to its purpose: to separate them from each other. Whoever had set the barrier knew what he was doing, and he did not want Tsuzuki going upstairs.

The whole thing reeked of Muraki.

Tsuzuki jogged to the stairwell at the other side of the hall, but, just as he had suspected and dreaded, the situation was the same there. Very well, he decided, casting a reluctant look up them, if he could not go up, he would go down—so long as there was nothing preventing him from doing so—and in the process a solution to this problem might present itself. There might be some hidden access way they had missed, an elevator perhaps, or emergency evacuation route. If he could just reach the roof, he might be able to get down to the right floor from there, he thought as he descended into the basement.

But somehow that thought evaporated the moment his feet came to rest on the basement floor.

It was dark down there, darker even than the rest of the building had been under the storm clouds. It was the silence, however, that bothered Tsuzuki—a thick, tangible air of silence like cold, wet fog drifting through the hall, disturbed only by the pattering of the rain falling on the roof four stories above him. He felt on the wall for a light switch, but when he flipped it nothing happened. Tsuzuki hadn't seen a flash of lightning, so the power must have been cut manually. For what other purpose would someone do that than to overwhelm some victim in the darkness?

Tsuzuki, however, would not be caught off his guard. As his eyes gradually adjusted to the dark, he made his way slowly down the hallway, guided by the dim outdoor lights reflected by the raindrops clinging to the high windows of those rooms whose doors were open.

He had not made it far when the ringing of a telephone in one of the rooms pierced the eerie calm, and it took only a moment more to discern it was coming from a room marked as the nurse's office. An empty white bed and swivel stool looked as though they had just been vacated with the ringing of that phone, and it hit Tsuzuki like an ill omen.

But he picked up the receiver anyway, and held it to his ear.

He said nothing. Only waited for the caller to speak—which he did presently.

"I take it that's you, Tsuzuki."

It was Muraki's voice. Tsuzuki clenched his jaw to keep from speaking.

"It's all right if you don't answer," came the chilly response. "Look out the window. Do you see the church across the schoolyard?" As Tsuzuki squinted out the rain-flecked window, he heard Muraki smile: "Of course you do. I'll be waiting for you there, just like old times."

"What's the meaning of all this, Muraki? What sick game are you playing at this time?" Tsuzuki said into the receiver, but the line went dead before he had gotten more than a few words out.

With a growl he slammed the receiver into its cradle, and turned to look out at the church again, its dark shape bathed in an unholy light in this rain shower. To stay or to go. It was possible that the call was just a ruse to distract Tsuzuki from Hisoka being upstairs.

On the other hand, Tsuzuki had to remind himself, thus far everything else had been a ruse to get _him_ to come to _Muraki_. Perhaps it was not the wisest course of action to take, then, to give the doctor what he was after; but in the same vein, he had left too much unsaid, gone through too much trouble to leave it unsaid, for Tsuzuki to let it rest. An open invitation was about as good as Tsuzuki could hope for. And in any case, barrier aside, he and Hisoka were only a phone call away from one another. Which did not leave Tsuzuki with much of a choice at all. He pulled up the collar of his trench coat and headed out into the downpour, scrunching his shoulders against the cold raindrops that fell heavily on his scalp and rolled down his skin.

He could not have been outdoors for more than a minute, but his hair and coat and the cuffs of his trousers were soaked and dripping on the parquet floor when he slid between the heavy front doors of the Sacred Heart church and closed them behind him, and plunged himself once again into booming silence.

He started when he turned to face the nave.

Inside the doors that separated it from the narthex, the church was gleaming with the light of hundreds of candles. They flickered upon the altar, at the podium, and at the feet of the statues who stood on each side looking benevolently down at worshipers. It was not a particularly rich interior—unlike the Oura church in which he had first met Muraki, Gothic opulence had been reduced here to its simplest lines and colors—but under the intimate light of the candles it glowed warm and golden. Tsuzuki could not help but be reminded of the Castle of Candles in Meifu, whose sacred inner sanctum he had been allowed to witness only a handful of times.

Like the Castle of Candles, the myriad tiny flames oppressed Tsuzuki with a sense of myriad souls. Only, unlike in Meifu, he couldn't be sure they represented the souls of the living. One thing he could be sure of, they were the most alive things inside the church, because it seemed at a cursory glance to be abandoned.

But no. Just as he was thinking that, Tsuzuki spotted a figure seated in the second row of pews. Upon drawing nearer, his black clothing and head bowed in silent prayer made it clear he was this parish's priest. Tsuzuki brightened somewhat. Of course, he thought, the candles couldn't have all lit themselves. Maybe the priest had seen Muraki come in. And if he had, was he aware of the danger he was in?

"Excuse me, Father," Tsuzuki said as he approached the man's side, "but you haven't seen a man with silver hair come in—"

He didn't get the chance to finish, as no sooner had he placed his hand on the priest's shoulder than his body went limp and tipped over, and Tsuzuki had to reach out to catch him before his head hit the pew. His first suspicion was that the young man had been murdered, but there was no sign of blood. And as he checked for a pulse, someone said behind him: "Not to worry, he's merely unconscious. When he wakes in time for morning services, he will have a terrible headache but otherwise feel fine. Surely you understand: I could not have anyone else interfering in our private affairs, after all this trouble to get you here."

Cradling the priest's head on his arm, Tsuzuki spun around to face Muraki. "If I find you've done anything—"

But the doctor held up a hand to plead silence.

"Relax, Tsuzuki," he said. He carefully placed his white coat, which was draped over his arm, over the back of a pew across the aisle. His tone of voice lacked the good humor that had characterized their brief discussion only the day before, and Tsuzuki could not ignore the other's gravity, the sadness in his figure—even if it was nothing more than a facade, no different from the first time they met in a church. "I came here to speak to you and nothing more. No amount of killing could interest me more than that. I have grown tired of shedding blood since we parted ways in Kyoto four years ago."

"Why do I find it so hard to believe you?"

"I cannot blame you for being skeptical. My past actions have warranted nothing less."

As Muraki spoke, Tsuzuki eased the priest gently down onto the pew, shrugged off his coat and, wet though it was, placed it bundled inside out under the man's head. He was keenly aware of the doctor's gaze scrutinizing his every move. Which only steeled Tsuzuki's resolve when stood back up to face Muraki head on.

"You're right," he said. "You have changed, haven't you? Now you've got your zombie boy to do your killing for you. I bet that really gets you off. I mean, not only does he bear an uncanny resemblance to that brother of yours you were obsessed with . . . Well, we all knew Maria Wong and Miss Tsubaki weren't exactly your type. Speaking of the devil, where is your little lapdog anyway?"

Muraki smiled at his choice of words, but it was a pained smile. Instead of answering, he turned to face the crucifix hanging above the altar, his hands sliding into his pockets. "I do wish you wouldn't use such a tone of voice, Tsuzuki. It doesn't suit you or this establishment. And here I am doing my very best to accommodate you."

Tsuzuki's snort was enough to tell him he wasn't buying it.

And the good doctor forced a chuckle along with him. "Oh, take my word for it, you laugh now, but you _will_ listen to what I have to say this time, and you will listen well."

"Because what you have to say is in my best interest?" Why did Tsuzuki have the feeling he had heard all this before?

It was the face of Christ on the cross, slipping from one emotion to the next over the flickering candlelight, that Muraki spoke to: "I take it you've already guessed that, as we speak, that dear boy of mine is preoccupied with your partner."

-o-

Hisoka's heart was hammering in his chest. It was dark inside the classroom so he couldn't be sure, and the boy's face was turned away from him, but Jun did not appear to be moving.

Fujisawa hovered over him like a night demon. Crouched on one knee, he tilted his head to examine Jun's face, then reached out a hand toward it. Hisoka feared to allow him to even touch the other boy, however, as though that touch would spell certain death for Jun, if he was not dead already. "Stop right there!" he said, and pulled the fuda his fingers were around far enough out for his enemy to see. "Touch one hair on him and I send you straight back to Meifu."

Fujisawa looked up when he spoke, and a smile appeared on his lips as he recognized Hisoka. "Kurosaki! I'm delighted you could make it! I wasn't sure you would know where to find me, but I guess it was silly of me to doubt Muraki-sensei after all. True to his word, you shinigami are so predictable."

"What did you do to him?"

"You mean Inoue?" Fujisawa frowned as he glanced back down at the second-year. "Not much. Kid came in here all nerves, waving a gun in my face. I barely touched him and he freaked out, stumbled backwards and fell. I think he hit his head or something, he's out cold, but I doubt it's very serious."

Then he was still alive? But Hisoka knew it was sheer luck that he had avoided losing someone else who trusted him.

As he spoke, Fujisawa made to touch Jun's face again, perhaps with intentions as innocent as checking for wounds, but Hisoka halted him with a sharp "Don't touch him, Fujisawa! I told you to stop, didn't I?"

"What are you so worried about? Do you honestly think I want to hurt Inoue? I couldn't care less about that kid."

"Liar. You're the one who lured him here."

Fujisawa shrugged.

"And the gunshot?"

"Like I said. Idiot kid tried to shoot me. I think it was because of what happened to his friend."

"Too bad he missed."

Fujisawa shot him a sarcastic look.

"Where's the gun now?" Hisoka asked him.

The other boy lowered his eyes to a point on the floor, bent down, and straightened back up with a pistol in his hands, doubtless dropped by Jun when he lost consciousness. "Funny," Fujisawa said as he turned it over in the palm of his hand, "of all the things I expected from Inoue, _this_ wasn't one of them. Where do you suppose he got ahold of something like this?"

That was all the prompting Hisoka needed to pull the fuda out completely. It was just a simple defensive charm, just the first thing he could get his hands on, but he didn't expect Fujisawa to know that. The tanto he had slipped into the waistband of his jeans that evening felt more and more like a reassuring weight against the small of Hisoka's back, tempting him to pull it out; but it was too dangerous given Fujisawa's proximity to Jun. Until he could separate them, he would have to lay his hopes in the deterrent of a fuda, which he held at the ready as he said in a level voice, "This is your last warning. Put the gun down and step away from the boy."

"Or what? Are you going to use one of those charms on me?" Fujisawa snorted. "Doesn't seem very wise, does it, what with me being so close to Inoue and all. What if you miss me and hit him?"

"I _won't_ miss. And I _will_ use it if you give me the slightest reason."

Hisoka half expected his warning to roll right off. He expected Fujisawa to call him on it, to test his sincerity. He could feel the other sizing him up, trying to determine whether Hisoka would in fact risk an innocent person's safety, or whether it was just an empty threat.

To Hisoka's surprise, though, in the end Fujisawa merely shrugged and placed the pistol on the desk over Jun's head. "It doesn't matter," he said. "A gun's useless against a shinigami anyway, right? You'll just start healing back up right away."

Hisoka ignored his question. Fujisawa already knew more about him than he was comfortable with.

"Come toward me, nice and slow."

Fujisawa frowned. "Are you going to take my soul back?"

"That's what shinigami do," Hisoka said. As Fujisawa took a few steps toward him, he raised his hands palms outward in a nonthreatening gesture, but Hisoka knew better than to trust his show of compliance. "Muraki violated the laws of Meifu as well as nature when he brought you back to life. We were sent to rectify his wrongs."

"'We'?" Fujisawa made a show of looking around. "I don't see your partner around here anywhere."

Hisoka hadn't noticed, but now that he felt for Tsuzuki's presence, which he had automatically assumed to be close behind, he was startled to find he couldn't locate it at all. He was determined not to give Fujisawa the satisfaction of knowing that, but the other boy guessed his train of thought anyway, and grinned.

"He's waiting downstairs," Hisoka told him.

"And just how do you plan to get me down there all by yourself?"

When Hisoka faltered for an answer, he chuckled, "Wouldn't it be safer to kill me now, while I'm wide open? No witnesses? Or is that against the rules too?"

Hisoka said nothing, but Fujisawa had a point. That would be so much easier. . . .

"Tch." Fujisawa stopped an arm's length from Hisoka, grin solidly plastered on his lips now. "Come on, don't tell me you always do things by the book. I thought you were more fun than that. I suppose you expect me to come along quietly."

More want than expect, but, "That's the idea."

"Aw. But I'm not done here yet."

Before Hisoka could blink, Fujisawa leaped at him, knocking the hand that held the fuda against the door frame before they both stumbled out of the classroom. Hisoka could only rely on his reflexes to defend himself, but simple charm though it was, reflexes were no match for the fuda's magic, even torn from Hisoka's grasp. He felt the charm collide with his own physical barrier as Fujisawa turned it on him, and it was like being hit in the sternum with a cannonball. The next thing he knew, he was flying backwards against the window sill in the hall, the tanto digging into his back, watching Fujisawa wince as he shook the burnt remains of the fuda from his fingers.

Stunned and crackling with residual energy, Hisoka couldn't move himself fast enough when the other boy bolted down the hallway. Protocol be damned, he should have put a stop to Fujisawa when he had the chance.

"Shit," Hisoka swore as he pushed himself to his feet. For a moment, his thoughts returned to Jun's unconscious form in the classroom, but he had to trust that the boy was well enough without him for the moment. Fujisawa, on the other hand, he could not allow to get away again. Hisoka took off down the hallway in pursuit, shaking off his pain. Fujisawa _could not_ escape—especially now that he was familiar with their techniques. There was no more room for failure; Hisoka would bring him back tonight if he had to go through hell to do it.

When Fujisawa reached the corner of the hall, he paused long enough to yell back, "What's the matter, Kurosaki? Can't you keep up with me?" Then he disappeared around the corner.

Hisoka was a step behind. He saw Fujisawa swing himself into the stairwell and start up toward the third floor. He could sense the other's excitement when he pushed off from the same rail Fujisawa had and turned the corner at the top of the stairs. He set his sights on Fujisawa's dim figure retreating down the dark hallway—

Then his ankle twisted beneath him, he was wrenched downward, and he barely had time to put out an arm to catch his fall as the wooden floor rushed up to meet him.

Hisoka winced at the impact, and would have sworn again if it had not knocked the breath from his lungs. He couldn't believe he had been so careless as to trip over his own feet, was the first thought that entered his head.

The second was the realization he couldn't move, and he knew he could not have fallen so hard as to break one limb, let alone every bone in his body. No, his tripping couldn't have been an accident.

As Hisoka looked around himself, an image began to brighten on the floorboards, as though marked out of phosphorescent chalk: a five-pointed star drawn inside a circle writ with strange characters, which steadily increased in luminosity as he lay there, stretched immobile on his side.

"Poor little shinigami. Like a bug caught in a spider's web. You really should watch where you step."

Fujisawa's lilting voice and the clack of his leisurely footsteps on the floor next to Hisoka's ear made him start. He tried once again to free himself, but in vain. He was held fast. He tilted his face as much as he was able, only to see the other looking smugly at him. "Does this remind you of anything?" Fujisawa asked him. "It should."

Not that Hisoka had to think back too hard. He had seen Muraki use a similar device to capture Tsuzuki. Only, that time Hisoka had known where the pentagram was being generated, and had been able to destroy it. What were the chances Tsuzuki could be about to do the same thing for him now? He feared they were very slim. Hisoka didn't understand: Where the hell was Tsuzuki? Why hadn't he followed Hisoka up the stairs if he had been so adamant about sticking together?

"I know you can still speak," Fujisawa said when he didn't get an answer. But he lost patience: "A summoning circle has many uses. Depending on how it's set up, it can keep the person inside it safe, or it can keep them from moving out of it. Apparently it's also very effective at capturing shinigami. But I'm sure you knew that already."

"Muraki must have set it up for you," Hisoka gritted out as he struggled. "Just like he's been helping you all along. Holding your hand, showing you what to do every step of the way. You owe him everything. You're nothing without him."

"Hey!" Fujisawa barked into his ear as he bent down. "He may have taught me what I've learned, but I am not powerless by myself. If you haven't figured that out by now, I'm going to enjoy proving it to you."

"Then this isn't about Jun at all," Hisoka said as Fujisawa knelt down beside him. "Just like the others. You called him to the school because you knew he would call me."

"Now you're getting the picture. I knew you weren't stupid."

"But this isn't about you and I either—" Hisoka shut his eyes against a wave of revulsion as Fujisawa plunged one hand underneath his jacket, feeling around for the rest of the fuda. The other boy's touch seemed a just little too friendly for only that. "Muraki wants Tsuzuki, not me. I don't have anything to offer him, aside from being a thorn in his side."

"You definitely are that," Fujisawa sighed. When he found the fuda, he pulled them out and ripped them in half, then quarters, letting them fall to the floor. "I guess these are just harmless pieces of paper now. What else have you got, shinigami?"

"Nothing. I told you. I don't understand why even someone like Muraki would go through all this trouble. Weren't there other ways of getting Tsuzuki's attention? Or else the two of you orchestrated all of this, the murders and everything, to teach us a lesson."

"I wasn't speaking figuratively, Kurosaki." Fujisawa put his arms around Hisoka's body, and Hisoka grimaced. The press of the boy's body, of his hands—the emotions that dripped through them into Hisoka's body as though from an IV made his stomach turn, even if Fujisawa's immediate intent was only to turn Hisoka onto his back. Those twisted feelings of lust and triumph and the strange mix of adoration and iconoclasm repulsed him, precisely because they reminded him of the emotional slew Muraki had projected onto him in the cherry grove, that stayed fresh inside his memory even now.

He was so distracted by that, he forgot about the short sword tucked into his waistband until Fujisawa found it. He went still as his searching fingers hit the scabbard, then a grin pulled at the corner of his lips in recognition. His fingers curled around it and gave it a tug. "Hello. What's this?" Drawing it out, Fujisawa laughed incredulously. "You were packing steel all this time, and you thought you'd pull a paper charm on me?" He couldn't seem to decide which was harder to believe—or more amusing.

Kneeling at Hisoka's side, he pulled the blade slowly from the scabbard, relishing the metallic ring it made, entranced by the way the light reflected from the rain on the windows traveled down the blade. "You really are a piece of work," he murmured. And what really troubled Hisoka was that Fujisawa held the sword as though he knew exactly what he was doing. How could Hisoka have been so careless as to play right into his and Muraki's hands?

"So Muraki brought you into this to dispose of me?" At least, Hisoka reasoned, it couldn't hurt to keep the other talking.

Fujisawa thrust the blade back into its scabbard with a snap.

"That seems rather futile, doesn't it? It's no small feat to do away with one of you guys."

"He's with Tsuzuki right now, isn't he? Or else he soon will be." In his head, Hisoka cursed his lack of foresight. If he had just listened to Tsuzuki, again, and agreed to stick together— "Is that the plan? To keep me tied up so he can get to Tsuzuki?"

Fujisawa laughed out loud at that. "I guess that's how it is! I suppose he figured this way we both get what we want. Do you think anyone would do the sort of things I've done if there wasn't anything in it for him at the end?"

"He promised you me."

"You really are full of yourself, Kurosaki. But, yeah, I guess he did. Or rather," Fujisawa smirked to himself, "he promised me something only you can give me. As it turns out, you and I share the same blood type. Lucky us, eh?"

-o-

When he failed to get the reaction he expected, Muraki glanced over out of the corner of his eye. "Does that not worry you, Tsuzuki? I'm surprised."

"Hisoka's a big boy. He can handle one ordinary high schooler, undead or not."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that. Fujisawa has learned some new tricks since he rejoined the living. He is a very quick pupil."

"Then the purpose of bringing him back from the dead was to separate us all along."

"Oh, no. It really was to get Enma's attention. But everything worked out so perfectly, what with the boy disobeying my orders and Fujisawa champing at the bit to get him alone. Apparently his memory of you two was more intact than I had surmised it would be, given the damage done to his brain. But I digress." Muraki's gaze remained fixed on the candle-laden altar, his lips slightly downturned in thought. "I waited for you in this school for weeks—sitting patiently right under your nose, Tsuzuki—and you sent that boy to me instead. I had to get him out of the picture somehow if you were going to listen to me properly. He was keeping you and me apart—"

"You act as though you have some god-given right to my attention."

"I like to think I do, in a manner of speaking. It is only a matter of making you understand that, Tsuzuki, and that boy was preventing you from doing so. I should have destroyed him body and soul when I had the chance. Only, the irony of it is, my crime of passion all those years ago turned out to be one of my deepest regrets. There is a saying in Swahili: _Shauku nyingi huondoa maarifa._ Intense desire removes intelligence. Well, I wasn't thinking it through when I cursed and killed that boy. Then again, how could I know in doing so I would be directly responsible for leading him down the short-track to becoming a shinigami? How could I have known he would be made your partner and come back to haunt me at every turn, or that he would devote himself entirely to protecting his beloved comrade, even at the sake of his own well-being?"

At this point Muraki chuckled, a chuckle brimming with self-pity—or self-loathing. Tsuzuki could not tell which. Nor was he moved by it. "How revolting," Muraki hissed. "Yes, he is a mistake I am not proud of, as it is one I can not easily rectify either. For how do you kill something that is already dead?"

"If you can't do it, what makes you think Fujisawa will do any better?" It seemed there was some reassurance Tsuzuki could take in that thought.

"I don't expect him to do away with the boy," Muraki said. "I expect him to keep the boy busy. Hole him up for a short while."

"Until you're finished with me."

"Precisely. After all, his immortal body will easily recover from whatever Fujisawa decides to do with him. It's not as though the boy will experience any _lasting_ pain—at least not physically. Unfortunately, he's more resilient than he looks."

The particular relish he seemed to pay those words made Tsuzuki's blood boil. He felt the demon Muraki had accused him of being raging within him, but that knowledge only made Tsuzuki more intent on suppressing it. "You bastard," he snarled, his jaw clenched so that his teeth ached.

Muraki merely seemed to find this curious as he turned to Tsuzuki.

"I'm the bastard?" he said. "For all you and I know, I could be lying. Perhaps nothing has happened to the boy. Perhaps he has outwitted Fujisawa and has him halfway back to Enma as we speak. On the other hand. . . ."

He held out one supine hand. "At this moment, as you and I waste time with small talk, my boy might have found some way to gain the upper hand. In which case, I would hate to be in your partner's shoes. That boy of mine does have a wicked imagination. I take it you've seen the photographs? Did you know the arrangement of the victims' hearts was his idea? He thought the symbolism was clever."

He waited for Tsuzuki's reaction, but Tsuzuki would not give him the satisfaction. Instead he felt a smile pull at the corner of his mouth. He would not fall for this so easily.

"I don't believe you," he said. "Fujisawa might have wielded the murder weapon, but you put it in his hand. Those deaths had your signature all over them. Maybe this will come as a surprise to you, Muraki, but I've been busy these last four years, studying your techniques. I've found some victims in our database I will make damn sure are properly ascribed to you when your judgment day comes, and I'll see that you pay for them with the maximum sentence. You can rest assured Hiragawa, and the four men before him, and all the others that failed to grab our attention before, will join the long list of names that sends you to the hell you belong in."

Muraki smiled. "So you believe I brainwashed the boy."

"I find it difficult to believe he could have committed murders of that caliber in his right mind."

"Or you don't want to believe anyone but I could be responsible for such heinous crimes. Because it's too painful for you to admit that there are monsters in this world besides you and I. Correct me if I'm off the mark."

He wasn't. He had hit the nail on the head. But Tsuzuki said nothing, just maintained his gaze.

"Then I guess nothing I can say will make you think otherwise. But you should know, it really was quite easy to convince the boy to do what I wanted. Once he believed what he was doing was for his own survival, he was actually quite eager to participate."

"What do you mean, his own survival?"

"Would you hear my confession, Tsuzuki?"

The question took Tsuzuki by surprise. Someone else had asked him that very thing once—the someone, in fact, who was responsible for putting Fujisawa in the ground. The coincidence was more than a little unnerving, and he shot back before he could think of anything else, "I'm not a priest."

"No, you're certainly not that. But I've always maintained that if you have a confession to make, a church is the best place in which to make it. Wouldn't you agree?"

"If you called me here just to confess your sins, we'll be here all week."

Muraki laughed richly. "Ah, Tsuzuki, it's amazing that even at a time like this, you still have the chutzpah for sarcasm. My mother was a convert to Catholicism, you see. It gave her comfort when the men she trusted most betrayed her. And in turn, she instilled the fear of God in me, albeit one wrapped up in a greater fear of inheriting her instability. Strange, isn't it: a boy terrified not of becoming his father but his mother?"

"Where is this tangent going?"

"Perhaps nowhere. Perhaps it is just that I feel the need to rationalize myself to you."

"Just get to the damn point."

Muraki turned away from him suddenly, lowered his head and put his fingers to the bridge of his nose. His shoulders shook slightly. Even in the still of the church, it was a moment before Tsuzuki understood that he was caught in a fit of silent laughter. Another moment before the thought crossed his mind that Muraki might have been sobbing as well.

-o-

Hisoka started. Without giving away his trouble, he tried once again to move his limbs, in case the invisible bonds that held him had somehow been weakened by Fujisawa's repositioning of his body. No such luck. It still felt as though there were shackles around his wrists and ankles and throat, bolted fast to the floor. Panic rose within him like bile, but he swallowed it. He was a shinigami. All he really had to fear was pain, and that was only temporary.

Though that did not change the fact that Hisoka was terrified. He willed himself to remain unmoved as he met Fujisawa's downcast eyes, but there was only so much he could do, so much he could repress. "Are you going to drink my blood, too? Like you did with Hiragawa?"

Fujisawa met his gaze and smiled. Almost sweetly, like a lover sharing his most intimate secret.

"Just like you ate those men's livers?"

-o-

The smug smile fell instantly from Tsuzuki's face. He must have heard Muraki wrong. Even though what he said only confirmed the horrible suspicion that had been sitting in Tsuzuki's gut since his last visit to the police station.

"Frankly," the doctor said, "I was surprised at how readily he believed everything I told him. I said that he needed to consume the livers of men with the same blood type as himself in order for his body to maintain its functioning—that it could not produce certain enzymes on its own anymore, and without them he would die. He was not hypnotized, not brainwashed, just fed a little white lie that he chose to believe as truth. Or, rather, perhaps it's fairer to say he had no wish to wait and see if such caution was in fact warranted. He wanted to please me so much, anyway. He was grateful for what I did, bringing him back from the grave.

"The lie helped him complete his task the first time. After that, it became less and less difficult to convince him to kill again. He had discovered, much like my young self, that there is a certain thrill to taking the lives of others. It is biologically hardwired into us. Repulsion and excitement, disgust and arousal—these seemingly polar opposites of sensation produce the same chemical reactions in our brains. They feel nearly identical. Only the logic we have been taught keeps them separated from one another in our conscious minds, and keeps us civilized. Only that prevents us from seeing a dead body as what it really is: a soulless hunk of meat. I don't think I need to tell you how easy it is to remove that final barrier. It is but the matter of pushing a few buttons."

Muraki paused, as though to look back over what he had said and check it for inaccuracies.

"In any case, there was one thing that kept him going more than any other."

-o-

"It wasn't as though I had a choice," Fujisawa said. "I never cared much for liver, still don't, but when your life depends on it, suddenly it becomes something you can stomach surprisingly well."

"Didn't it cross your mind that Muraki was just making it all up to get you to do his bidding?"

"Maybe it did, but I guess I didn't really care. I owe him my life, and so much more. Killing those men was the least I could do to repay him. And don't think I wasn't aware of the consequences of my actions. It was actually kind of fun, in a weird way."

"Fun."

"Like a survival game. Kill or be killed. The rush you get when you're still alive at the end of the day . . . it's like nothing else you can ever experience. You don't really know what it is to be alive until that moment, and Sensei understands that. He's died many more times than I have."

Hisoka could hardly comprehend what he was hearing. His very existence would not allow him to. It was like listening to Tsubaki all over again, as she told him what an angel and a savior the doctor had been to her. But Fujisawa knew what Muraki was, and was not bothered by the truth. How could anyone be attracted to that monster, especially knowing what a monster he really was—unless that person was of like nature himself? "He's just using you, Fujisawa," Hisoka found himself saying, though he knew it was probably fruitless to do so, "and when you've served your purpose, he'll throw you away. Just like he's done with everyone else in your position. I've seen it before. He doesn't care what happens to you. He doesn't care about anyone but himself."

"And I said I don't care. What part of that don't _you_ get?"

Unlike that time on the sea, however, Hisoka could find no sympathy within himself for this young man. There was a maliciousness there, a longing to do evil hiding just beneath the surface, that Hisoka had sensed before—long before Muraki had ever gotten his hands on Fujisawa. Before it had riled Hisoka, and vaguely disgusted him. But at that time, he had not been its target.

"Now that I have you," Fujisawa said, as though he could see into Hisoka's mind, "I don't need anything else."

-o-

"The regenerative power of the blood of a shinigami." Muraki said it like the title of a treatise. "Only that would grant him a self-sustainable life. That was what I told him, anyway, and it spurred him on, believing a normal life would be his reward for a job well done. When in reality. . . ."

"In reality, you never planned for what happened once he got this far," Tsuzuki finished for him.

"As I said before, he was an old experiment, a practice piece while I was waiting for you in Kyoto. I wanted to see if I could successfully revive flesh that had died before I went so far as to try it on what remained of my brother. I had already failed where he was concerned too many times. You were my last chance. I could not afford to waste it. Of course." He spread his arms in a useless gesture. "We both know what became of that."

"Then, some other unwilling victim helped you 'complete' Fujisawa, someone like me? I was there when his body washed to shore—or what was left of it."

"It wasn't exactly like that. The replacements for his missing limbs and organs came from the pet project of my old professor. I believe you had the pleasure of meeting him before he passed. He never knew about Saki, but he was very enthusiastic when I brought him the remains of a teenage murder victim and asked for his help in putting him back together again. In the name of science, I told him. He was a man of the visible spectrum to the very end, though. He never could understand how I was able to repair the boy's damaged brain or revive him, and consequently spent the short remainder of the rest of his life trying to figure it out. He would not have understood my methodology anyway. It would have been beyond even his comprehension, or at least what he could stomach.

"To make a long story short, I came to, incredulous that I had survived my wounds and the burning of the laboratory, no longer able to complete the experiment that had given me a reason for being, but instead saddled with the care of a successful prototype. It did not take me long to think of a good use for him, something that would be mutually beneficial. I believe I said once that dolls are superior to human beings for the simple fact that they can be restored to their former wholeness, whereas the human body is much more limited. That is what I believed, watching one patient after another succumb to death despite my best efforts to the contrary. But not anymore. Fujisawa has made me realize otherwise. He is not a perfect reversal of death, but he is good enough for my purposes."

Muraki smiled to himself as a thought crossed his mind. "Let me put it another way. Have you ever heard of the story of Rabbi Loew's golem, Tsuzuki?" When Tsuzuki said nothing, he explained: "Legend has it that the rabbi constructed a man out of clay and brought it to life by writing a magical word on its forehead. He did all this in order to exact his revenge."

He left his meaning hanging, but Tsuzuki knew exactly to what—rather, to whom Muraki referred. "Hisoka."

-o-

"You know, you and are a lot alike, Kurosaki," Fujisawa said, again in that lilting voice.

"Bullshit," Hisoka spat back. "Aside from our blood type, you and I are nothing alike. I wouldn't even think of doing half the things you've done."

Perhaps that was too presumptuous a thing to say. Hisoka regretted it a moment later when Fujisawa straddled his stomach with a fascinated, "Really." He seemed to take his time situating himself comfortably atop Hisoka, as though he knew just how much it bothered him and on how many levels. It was not as though Hisoka could do anything, either, lest he make his situation worse. If he squirmed, the other's crotch would rub against his belly. The weight of him was already unpleasant, Fujisawa's lusts already threatening to overwhelm Hisoka's mental defenses.

"That's interesting that you would say that," the boy said, "because I bet in your line of work you have to deal with some pretty macabre things and take people's lives all the time."

Fujisawa sat back and grinned down at Hisoka. "Oh, that's right. You can't just kill people because you want them dead. There're procedures to follow. You ever break one of your institution's rules, Kurosaki? Ever, say, commit a mercy killing? I mean, it's just that, well, no one is perfect. Especially when you're constantly being bombarded by other people's sick thoughts. Kinda messes with your ability to reason, doesn't it?"

There was no way Fujisawa could read his mind, Hisoka reminded himself, but by the way he said that, he had to know things he would not have learned on his own in a million years. How much had Muraki told Fujisawa about him?

Fujisawa lowered his voice. "Can you read me like that? Can you tell what I'm thinking right now? You ever dream about doing to Sensei what he did to you? Seems to me there'd be something wrong with you if you didn't."

Hisoka started. _What he did to you._ Then his suspicions had been correct.

"Like I said, he told me all about you and your partner. He spoke of you particularly like you were a bad taste in his mouth, which I couldn't understand. In fact, he wanted me to tell you you could think of this little situation of ours as his revenge if that made you feel better. Whatever. I suppose he has his reasons for hating you so much, but they don't particularly concern me." Fujisawa let out a breathy laugh, and leaned over Hisoka to murmur through a wicked grin, "I thought you looked like the type that's just asking to be violated when I first met you. I couldn't imagine at the time, though, until Sensei shared it with me, how true that was. I guess I wasn't the first person to come to that conclusion, huh?"

Hisoka clenched his jaw tight. He had no trouble finding his hatred again at that memory, but it wouldn't do him any good to fire back without thinking, and give Fujisawa more ammunition against him.

"You're rather quiet, Kurosaki," the other observed. He put a heavy hand to Hisoka's abdomen, spreading his palm flat, and Hisoka could not control the instinctual spasming of his muscles underneath it. Every cell of his body was screaming to get away from what was coming, and Fujisawa knew it. "Could it be because secretly, way down deep inside you where you don't even want to admit it, you actually liked what he did to you?" he said as he slid that hand lower, his fingertips brushing the fly of Hisoka's jeans.

Hisoka shut his eyes.

"Well," Fujisawa revised, "maybe you just enjoyed that part."

Grabbing it by the shirttails, he pushed Hisoka's shirt up to his armpits without warning. The sudden exposure of his bare skin to the cold air inside the school made Hisoka gasp and he opened his eyes. Forgetting his composure, he struggled against the invisible bonds that continued to hold him fast. "Get the hell off me!" he yelled. He no longer cared what Fujisawa thought of him for doing so.

The other boy flashed him a calm smile. "Relax, Kurosaki." Picking the tanto up where he had left it, Fujisawa rested the tip of the blade, still encased in its scabbard, against the underside of Hisoka's chin. "I'm just trying to prove a point here. You don't believe I'm sincere when I say I would do anything for Muraki-sensei, but to me the worse offense is your lack of gratitude."

"What would I have to thank that monster for! After what he did to me—"

"What he did to you was save you from the same kind of life that awaited me." As he said so, Fujisawa let the tip of the sword drop leisurely down the side of Hisoka's neck, then over his chest, where a flick of his wrist made it slide this way and then that, like he was spelling invisible messages on Hisoka's skin. "Sensei showed me a kind of love no one else ever did, the kind of love the Church had been promising me my whole life Jesus has in him for everybody. Magnanimous eternal compassion, heh. But that's a lie if I ever heard one. When even God had abandoned me, just for being what he made me, _he_ gave me this second chance."

"You've been duped by a devil, Fujisawa, not a savior. Whatever redemption he promised you . . . it might have been an option once, but you've thrown that chance away by doing what you've done."

"And you don't think you're better off where you are now?"

Hisoka couldn't answer. It was not as though the same thought hadn't occurred to him on occasion, though he never could come up with a definitive answer to such a question, one way or the other. He wasn't sure he wanted to. He wasn't sure what he'd have left if he did.

Fujisawa lowered his eyes to concentrate on his work. "It's awfully selfish of you, if you ask me. Although I guess I can see why you wouldn't automatically be thankful." He smiled. "After all, he brought me back to life and took away my pain, but he made you suffer and die. In either case, though, he certainly made sure we wouldn't forget what we owed him, didn't he? He made sure we'd remember who made us when he marked us as his."

And so saying, Fujisawa put his free hand to his forehead and pushed the hair back out of his eyes.

Hisoka could not be sure what he was looking at at first, but when a second later it hit him, his eyes went wide. There, written on the young man's forehead, were three Hebrew characters, glowing red underneath his skin like they had been scratched into it. Like the scars Hisoka carried from his own curse, which had killed him slowly over three years of unbearable agony. That marked them both like a child's name written on its favorite dolls.

Hisoka could feel the curse within his body reacting at the sight of that mark, where Fujisawa had just traced over it with the lacquer scabbard's end—as though the words that formed them both, written in languages from the opposite ends of the Earth, were magnets pulling one another together through the two's bodies. His flesh itched and burned, a mere discomfort at first that Hisoka could feel steadily growing in magnitude.

"You try as hard as you can to convince yourself you're free of him," Fujisawa said with a slight tilt of his head, "but isn't that just hubris?" He shrugged to himself. "Maybe you'll think better when I've finished with you. The question now is where to start."

He hefted the tanto onto his shoulder as he sat erect on Hisoka's stomach, tapping the short sword gently against it in indecision. "I wonder if I should do you like I did Hiragawa. Then you can tell me how he felt as he was dying." He shifted his hips a little, and Hisoka grimaced at the contact. "But on second thought, that does make such a mess. Of course, that's not the _only_ major artery down there to choose from."

Hisoka held his breath. He couldn't mean it. But, to his relief, Fujisawa decided with a chuckle, "Nah. Even _I_ don't have it in me to do something that perverted."

The jugular and carotid were too cliche, he went on like someone trying to decide what cut of meat was best for his purposes. It would have made Hisoka's stomach turn, if his body's neurons were not otherwise occupied with the fire of Muraki's curse slowly coursing through them.

"I know," Fujisawa finally said, slapping the tanto against his palm. "Of course. It's always more romantic when someone slits their wrists."

"What exactly do you think you can accomplish—" Hisoka began through teeth gritted against the discomfort, but the rest of the question was lost in a scream that forced its way from his lungs when Fujisawa unsheathed the short sword and plucked at the tender skin of his exposed wrist, hard, in two quick moves, opening the vein down its length.

Hisoka's arm jerked in its restraint. The pain shot down his arm and through his body like an electric shock. Thick, dark blood welled up in the cut and ran over his wrist. Fujisawa bent over him and lowered his mouth to it, catching the overflow with his tongue before placing his lips over the wound he had made, no different from if he were lapping up the drip from an ice cream cone. The tanto's blade rattled against the hardwood floor where Fujisawa set it down, his hand over the handle as he braced himself.

Hisoka turned his head the other way and shut his eyes tight, but he could still see the boy in his mind. The feeling of Fujisawa's tongue tracing the opening of the wound, as though trying to get inside him, only made the image clearer, the wave of satisfaction that came with it only stronger, bombarding his senses mercilessly. Those kneading lips that coaxed the blood from his body, slowly draining him empty. It was a queer feeling Hisoka was not used to. At least when he was cut down in battle he could move, he had control of his faculties. The weakness that he could sense beginning to overtake him, however, was in some ways more terrifying, in large part because of his absolute inability to do anything about it. Whether it was Fujisawa's doing alone or Muraki's, Hisoka could not bear this feeling of powerlessness, and of physical violation that was just as intimate as any sexual act.

Now he knew how Jun had felt, though. He wanted to kill Fujisawa himself. He could feel his hand shaking with a queasy combination of shooting pain and numbness, and it infuriated him. Something between a grunt and a whimper escaped Hisoka, even though he bit down on it. He knew his tissues would close themselves back up, but he was losing a great deal of blood and the process never seemed to take so long before as it did now.

When it did, Fujisawa just opened his wrist back up again, as though in a trance. The fresh flow of blood between his lips made him moan low in his throat. He hardened against Hisoka's belly. "Ah-h. . . ." He let out a carnal groan half smothered against the heel of Hisoka's hand, pressing his lips to the pulse that beat wildly there before returning to the vein with a sigh.

When after several minutes the vein closed back up a third time, Fujisawa was merciful enough to let it. Hisoka didn't think he could stand another assault on the delicate nerves of his wrist. Already Fujisawa had managed to bring tears to the corners of Hisoka's eyes.

Wiping his mouth on the back of the sleeve of his Sacred Heart blazer, he pushed himself back up. "God, that feels so good!" The mark on his forehead cast his eyes in an unearthly light as he leaned over Hisoka, murmuring, "You're even better than Hiragawa was, but I guess that's just par for the course."

The tanto lay forgotten in the circle, and Fujisawa brushed back the hair that clung to the side of Hisoka's face with a tenderness at odds with what blasphemy he had committed so eagerly. "I can see what Sensei saw in you," he whispered, his reddened lips skimming the corner of Hisoka's mouth, and the hand slid lower. "You're so beautiful when you suffer. Give me everything you've got, Kurosaki. Come on. Scream for me too."

His hand came to rest on Hisoka's solar plexus, icy cold against his bare skin, and Hisoka's vision exploded.

Shooting pain ran him through, rending every part of him as the other's touch reawakened his curse, transporting him back eight years to that cherry grove. The screaming pain rendered him deaf, so that Hisoka was not aware how his own howls echoed through the hall until Fujisawa choked them off, placing his mouth over Hisoka's in a brutal kiss. Then he tasted his own blood on Fujisawa's tongue.

-o-

Imai plopped himself down on the bench between the lockers. He put his elbows on his knees and his fingertips to his temples. Then, very slowly, he let out his breath.

It felt like one long one had been stagnating inside him since morning. It had been a long day of little progress. An investigation into the last known whereabouts of Dr Muraki Kazutaka turned up a dead end, and he had been chewed out by the chief again for the mere idea of asking the feds for classified documents about the man's grandfather for what seemed to be—other than the little matter of a missing suspect—an open and shut case of teen-on-teen violence.

"Why does it seem like every time we have a viable lead, the door slams shut in our face?" he grumbled to his partner by way of the floor. "We must be paying for something we did in our past lives."

"You're just looking at it from the wrong angle."

Imai looked up at Asai, who was currently preoccupied undoing his tie in his locker mirror, and seemed to be steadfastly ignoring the irritated look Imai shot him.

"I see this as a too few and far between opportunity to go home and see my family while they're still awake," Asai went on, "and come back in the morning with a fresh perspective."

"This Muraki lead was your idea, let me remind you."

Asai just shrugged.

"Well," Imai grumbled, "at least my instincts tell me this is one guy we can't afford to let go of."

"That's good. But the case has cooled off, there haven't been any new deaths since Fujisawa's disappearance, and working frustrated never did anyone any good. I'm going home to sleep in my own bed, and I suggest you take full advantage of the same."

The door swung open, and both turned to see Detective Inoue heading for his locker. He said when he saw them, "You two working late again?"

"We were just leaving," Asai said, and Inoue made a humming sound of acknowledgment.

But that instinct just wouldn't leave Imai alone.

"Hey, Inoue," he said, "you ever, in any of your investigations, come across a guy named Muraki?"

Asai glanced back at him, while the other detective turned up his eyes in his big head before nodding slowly and saying, "If you mean the doctor Muraki, yeah, I've heard of him. The name came up in an organ trafficking investigation I was leading, if I remember right, back when I was working organized crime. Can't say I ever met the guy myself, but I'm familiar with his reputation. Rumor had it—unsubstantiated, mind you—that he had some connections with the Triads in Nagasaki quite a few years back, but there was nothing we could ever bring him in on. Tthen again, he was never one of our targets either.

"But what I do remember," he said as though the thought had just occurred to him, "is that at the same time, he also had ties to the Kansai mob, and had his hands in the pockets of a few Diet members and corporate magnates as well. Again, nothing we could substantiate, of course, but my point is the guy seemed to be involved in everything and nothing at the same time, if you know what I mean."

Imai exchanged glances with Asai. Yeah, they knew what he meant.

"That takes balls," Inoue continued, "even for a man of science, and especially for someone his age. (This was some ten, fifteen years ago I'm talking about.) We used to joke he must have made a deal with Devil himself the messes he came out of unscathed. But why you asking me?" he asked Imai. "You find something in your investigation to finally nail the bastard?"

"No." Imai shot him a disarming smile. "Just a hunch."

"I thought you already had a pretty solid suspect."

"It's just a matter of finding the kid. We're looking into anything that might help us find him at this point."

"Well, I doubt this has anything to do with the mob," Inoue said. "I have a keen sense about these things, and frankly a cult is the first thing that comes to mind with your case. What with the missing blood and all."

Asai seemed to find that amusing. "That's a typical response, but it's worth noting that there has never been a proven case of human sacrifice or ritual murder by satanic cults in industrialized nations."

"All I'm saying is that you never know what kids are capable of these days. After all the shit I've seen, I thought a Catholic school would be the safest place for my boy, and look what happens." Inoue slammed his fist into his palm. "His best friend gets whacked by his own upperclassman."

"You worried your son might be targeted?" Imai wasn't sure why he had asked that.

But Inoue just frowned. "Nah. He knows how to handle himself. If anything, I'm worried about what this case is doing to him. I swear, that boy takes after his mother more and more every year. It's that conscience of his, like a steel trap. Once he gets it around a problem, it's hard for him to just back off, let people whose job it is deal with it."

Imai and Asai exchanged glances.

"His friend's death hit him pretty hard," Imai agreed.

"They'd been having some differences." Inoue started. "Hey, look, I apologize if my boy gave you two any trouble about this case. Kids, they don't always know the meaning of restraint—well, you've got one, Asai, you know what I mean."

"She's only three years old," Asai said.

"Yeah, and the worst is yet to come. Wait and see what you've got to look forward to when puberty hits."

"But that's just the thing," Imai said. "Jun didn't say anything about the case. That's what I found so strange, considering how our questions last week seemed to bother him."

"Did he come by earlier?"

"Yeah. He said he had something he wanted to discuss with you, but you had just gone out."

"Give you any clues as to what that something might have been?"

"No." Imai frowned. "Why, didn't you get his note?"

"What note?"

"He told us he was going to leave one in your locker."

Inoue's brows furrowed as he looked at Imai. "I didn't see anything in my locker when I got back."

"And you haven't talked to your son at all this evening?" Asai sounded like he was grilling a witness when he said, "Does he know the combination to your locker?"

"I don't see why he—" Inoue got the other two's attention when he trailed off. "Wait."

They made room for him as he went to his locker and tackled the lock. Once open, he felt around for what must have been the note Imai had promised, picking up various items to check beneath them and brushing aside spare shirts in case it had fallen among them, but, "Nope. Didn't leave anything as far as I can see."

"Maybe it slipped his mind," Asai offered, more out of a sense of duty than actually believing what he said.

Inoue reached into the very back of the locker where the lock box he kept his pistol in was, and went still. "My piece is gone," he said in a low voice.

Imai started and Asai turned to him. "I thought you always keep it secure."

"I do," Inoue insisted, "but I guess Jun—" He rubbed his hand over his head. "I don't believe this. This isn't like him at all. Why would he do something like this when he knows how dangerous it is?"

But Imai could tell Inoue already knew the answer as they did. Asai said, "He's been lying to us. We should have known by the way he answered our questions he knew something we didn't. We weren't fast enough, so he's decided to take matters into his own hands."

"Well, we have to find him!" Inoue said. This time it didn't even occur to Imai to tell him that much was obvious.

-o-

Turning his back on the altar with a small shrug, Muraki took a few steps up the aisle. "So now you have a choice, Tsuzuki. Stay and listen to what I have to say, or walk away and rescue your partner from whatever ungodly things Fujisawa plans to do to him. I don't envy you your decision. If you stay, the boy may never forgive you for abandoning him in his time of need. You may tell one another that you trust each other unconditionally, but is that how you really feel? And does that really matter when one of you is calling for help that never comes?"

Tsuzuki narrowed his gaze on Muraki's back. "Are you telling me to leave? Because the way you phrase it, it sounds as though it really isn't a question for me at all."

"Go to him, then, if that is how you see it," Muraki told him as he turned and met that gaze, "and continue this monotonous existence of yours in blissful ignorance for as long as it lasts. I'm sure that's exactly what Enma would want you to do. He must be aware of how risky it is to allow you to pursue me, knowing I could reveal to you all the secrets he wishes kept hidden at the first chance given to me." Muraki added almost sarcastically, "He must have great trust in your stubbornness to refuse to listen to anything I have to say."

It might have been nothing more than another lie intended to entrap him, but that caught Tsuzuki's attention and would not let it go, even as a voice within him willed him to just leave right then and there, just go find Hisoka. Was it possible there was an ounce of truth to what Muraki said—or even more—or was such a notion just the working of a paranoid mind?

"Meifu is entitled to its secrets," he said, more to himself than the doctor. "I'm well aware there are a lot of things I have no business knowing, and that fact doesn't bother me in the least."

"If they were secrets about yourself and your purpose there, would that change your opinion? Perhaps if I put it in blunter terms, you would show this matter the concern it deserves. Enma does not trust you. Consequently he has ordered the ministry to systematically suppress information about you, including the very information that could help you make sense of your role within it. Where you come from, what your purpose is—"

"How do you know all this?" Perhaps Watari had been right to worry about a mole in the ministry.

But Muraki only said, "Everything about your condition makes it clear to me you are being kept in the dark. Which means Enma must have sworn your immediate superiors to the same silence. You don't believe me now, but ask yourself how much that man who controls the shadows really knows about you, and how much he is willing to say to your face—"

"This is ludicrous," Tsuzuki cut him off. He didn't want to hear Tatsumi dragged into it as well. "I don't know why I'm even listening to this garbage. I've never given Enma a reason to suppress anything."

"Certainly there's a reason. To keep you under his control."

"He has nothing to fear from me."

"Doesn't he now—"

"I am a loyal employee of Meifu," Tsuzuki said with a nod. "I've always done my best to leave my past behind me, where it belongs. He knows that."

"A civil servant working his ministry's bottom-of-the-barrel jobs," Muraki said gravely as he closed the distance between them, "who ranks among the most powerful men in Enma's service. In fact, I would put my money on your being the _most_ powerful. Forgive me if I question the obvious discrepancy. It was that power that won you those guardian spirits whom you command so well, and a high office in Hell—and you can't mean to tell me that is something just any human being can do if he puts his mind to it."

At the flash of indignation in the shinigami's eyes, Muraki smiled. "Yes, I know about your work with devils. While you've been busy researching me, I've learned all about your accomplishments. And I find you more and more compelling for them. What you've accomplished says a lot about you, whether you like what is said or not. It makes sense that someone of your character would be kept around for seventy years when one puts the matter into that light. Incompetence is incompetence, Tsuzuki, but what you possess is a gift unlike any other. Beings of light and darkness alike are attracted to your presence like moths to a flame, and do you think it is because of something as trite as charisma or compassion? No. Creatures like that respond so strongly to one thing only, and that is sheer power."

"That isn't true," Tsuzuki said, thinking of the guardian spirits who were so loyal to him. He knew they saw a strength in him he rarely preferred to use, but he refused to believe that was all there was to their devotion. He refused to believe that power could succeed without goodness, for if that were the case, was there any reason to believe in a just universe?

"Do you even know what your true power is?"

Tsuzuki knitted his brows, and the doctor took that as a negative.

"You don't even have what it takes to realize your full potential, because you wouldn't know where to start. You know it comes from those genes of yours that are not human, and consequently it frightens you to unleash it. Because you don't know what it will do to you, what it will do to those around you. Those you care about." Muraki lowered his voice. "You fear, wisely, that once you have embraced that part of yourself, that part of your heritage, you will never be able to turn it off, and return to this illusion that you wish those closest to you to see: this illusion that you are someone good."

Tsuzuki bristled at his choice of words. In the logical part of his mind, he knew that these were only words, no different from what Muraki had said to him before, when he revealed that Tsuzuki's genealogy was not entirely human.

Like that time, however, he could not help feeling that those simple words resonated with a truth he longed to bury and deny—that he could feel being seduced out of its hiding place by the doctor's calm and oh-so-reasonable voice. It's as if he can read my soul, Tsuzuki thought to himself, but those are feelings I've never confessed to anyone.

Even though they had remained closest to his heart since before he could remember.

"What do you know of it?" he murmured, turning his eyes away.

"Everything, Tsuzuki. Because I went through the exact same process many years ago."

"Except that unlike me, you embraced the darkness inside of you. But I'm not you, Muraki. I won't let my demons get the best of me."

"It is only a matter of time before the walls you build up around your true self crumble. You cannot see it yet, but already they are chipped and cracked, balancing on a rotten foundation. This whole facade is a lie, as I well know. It is simply a veneer to cover the pain that dogs you constantly," Muraki said in an empathetic tone of voice, "knowing that your very existence is a sin, and an affront to God. Such a creature can neither deny nor disobey its nature. You and I were made for destruction. We cannot resist doing what we were created to do any more than birds can resist the urge to sing."

At that, Tsuzuki rounded on him. "Don't compare yourself to me! You think that excuses what you've done, but it doesn't. You are human, and as a human being you bear absolute responsibility for your actions. None of us is exempt. Making deals with devils does not change what you are. It's not a free pass from your humanity."

"I agree, but I never said that I was human to begin with."

Tsuzuki turned away with a tsk. What purpose this nonsense served was beyond him. Muraki had been right to urge him to leave: This was nothing but a waste of time, and Tsuzuki told him so under his breath.

"Did Enma ever tell you about my grandfather, Yukitaka? The mortal whose life he stooped to taking himself?"

That gave Tsuzuki pause and piqued his curiosity. Muraki had mentioned him before, in the cafe, before he had refused to say anything more. "What about him?"

The doctor seemed to take his interest as a small victory.

"I couldn't be sure if you remembered—you were not in your right mind at the time—but he took care of you for the last eight years of your life. Of course, I use the phrase 'took care of,' but perhaps it is more accurate to say he provided you with a bed and shelter, since you did not eat, drink or sleep in all those years you were under his clinic's observation."

Muraki paused, and asked cautiously, almost apologetically, "_Do_ you remember anything from that time?"

Tsuzuki lowered his eyes. There was a vision of the red light of evening, of a butterfly outside the window, an antiseptic smell, a feeling of overwhelming despair, but he said simply, "No."

Muraki nodded. "Perhaps that's for the best. Then you would not remember how he examined you in an attempt to discover the cause of your mysterious . . . condition," he decided, unhappy with the word choice but resigned to it. "The experiments he performed on you, the samples he preserved for future study—"

"Does this story have a point other than to humiliate me?"

"That information I spoke of, that Enma wishes kept hidden from you, some of it concerns my grandfather and myself. Except I'm not entirely sure even he knows the whole truth about me, about where I came from. I want you to know it, Tsuzuki—in defiance of Enma. In defiance of God! It is rather important to me that you do."

For a long moment, Tsuzuki could only glare at Muraki in silence, trying to read what lay beyond the intensity in his eyes. "If it means so much to you," he finally said, "will you leave us alone after you've said it? Will you stop taking the lives of innocent people to further your agenda with us—I mean, I assume this _is_ your agenda."

Muraki chuckled. "Are you trying to strike a bargain with me?"

That had not been Tsuzuki's intention, but he jumped at the opportunity nonetheless. "Sure, why not. I know, I should know better than that by now, but it's not as though I have any chips to play at this time, is it? All I can give you is my promise to hear you out, even if what you have to tell me is a load of bullshit."

"Am I reduced to a mayfly in your eyes, Tsuzuki, laying my eggs of knowledge and dying? But fine, if that's what it takes," Muraki said with an amused smile. "I promise never to pursue you or the boy again if you hear me out."

Tsuzuki shook his head at that. Doubtless this was just another ploy. It couldn't possibly be that simple. He turned his head and stepped away, suddenly uncomfortable with their proximity. "What am I even saying? You would never agree to something like that so easily."

"Speaking of eggs. You never knew your father, did you?" the doctor asked suddenly.

Tsuzuki paused in mid-stride. What did that have to do with anything?

Apparently it was a rhetorical question, for Muraki continued after only a heartbeat: "It makes sense that you wouldn't. Perhaps there was a man you were raised to believe had begotten you, but you knew deep in your being that you shared none of his blood." He spread his arms briefly, calling to attention their surroundings. "Like Joseph and Jesus. I'm just hypothesizing, of course. I, not so unlike yourself, spent most of my life believing I was the son of the man who called himself my father. I believed that I was the latest heir to the Muraki dynasty, and consequently when it was brought to my attention in my fifteenth year that I had a half-brother, I believed that he was a bastard child and that my father had committed the graver sin of betraying his legitimate son."

He chuckled at some private knowledge, and Tsuzuki could barely catch him murmuring under his breath: "Believed, believed, believed. . . . How fragile is faith under the brutal light of the truth.

"Then, when I had matured and become a doctor in my own right," he continued again, "I discovered the truth that my father had wished hidden from me—a truth which proclaimed that half-brother, the one I tried to revive with your body, to be a more legitimate son of my father than even I. As it turned out, I was not the child of my father's blood after all.

"Oh, I was my mother's child, I can be sure of that. _That_ was never a question. But as to who supplied the other half of my genetic material?" He shrugged. "One night, while I was conducting research at the university, I decided to sequence my own DNA. Much less was known about the human genome at that time than is today, even though that was fewer than two decades ago. Nevertheless, I was clearly able to recognize that there were certain sequences in my genetic makeup that had no comparison to anything resembling human DNA. In short, there were whole sections of my genetic structure that can only be explained as being donated from an alien, that is to say, non-human source."

At this point Muraki smiled, but even Tsuzuki, who turned to look back at him, could see that there was pain behind it—that what the doctor had to say was not something even he could easily boast about:

"I had my suspicions—various theories that my young imagination entertained. Through the years I was able to piece together the details surrounding my birth from the clues grandfather left behind, hidden where he had hoped I would never find them. I came to learn of his hubris, and of my own unnatural conception. I resigned myself to the fact that I was, at the crux of my being, an experiment myself—a project of my grandfather's—my grandfather who had devoted his life to the mastery of life and death.

"But one question remained: _Whom_ did I come from? I was only able to narrow the possibilities down to one, indisputable truth three years ago, as I was recovering from the incident in Kyoto, but by then I could no longer say I was very surprised. Troubled by the irony, yes, but no longer surprised. I had already suspected the truth within my self for years, since the day I met you for the first time in person and felt deep in my soul the strength of the connection between us. Perhaps even at that very first glimpse of your picture that grandfather had taken all those decades ago, something hardwired into me was triggered by the sight of your face, something which I had not known how to interpret until this moment."

Tsuzuki took a step back, placing his hand on the back of the pew to brace himself from the truth that encroached with each of the doctor's words. Everything he was told him to leave now, before Muraki decided he had had enough preamble and said what Tsuzuki feared—though even he was not sure what that was.

But his legs were stuck, his feet rooted to the spot, his senses wide open and receptive to all the doctor had to say, as though some force within him had him locked in its invisible grip. He could break those bonds at any time, just like his conscience told him he should, but he had to face the fact that deep down in some hidden place he didn't want to. He wanted to listen. Just as Muraki had predicted. It was only that Tsuzuki could not help thinking again and again, like a mantra that kept him rooted to that spot: Whatever is coming, that is what Enma doesn't want me to know. That is what Enma wishes he knew himself. That is what he fears will destroy Meifu if I know it. . . . And somehow that knowledge only made him more receptive, more eager for the terrible moment.

Muraki could clearly see the struggle within him. It was written all over Tsuzuki's body language. "Does any of this sound familiar, Tsuzuki? I remember saying almost the same things about you four years ago. I only regret that at the time I did not know with such certainty how you and I were connected. If I had, perhaps the outcome of that night would have been different."

He put his hands in his pockets, and the sound of his footsteps as he walked slowly up the aisle was a metronome for what he said next.

"You never knew your real father at all. I, on the other hand, have known all three of mine: The father whose heir I am, who raised me as his son; my grandfather who made me; and . . . my biological father, the donor whose blood runs through my veins, who gave up his genetic material unwittingly, and never imagined that some thirty-five years after his death, the wonders of technology would beget him a real, live son."

"No," Tsuzuki finally found his voice, "that can't be true. I don't believe you."

"I didn't expect you to take my word for it. So I had a neutral party run the tests." And so saying, Muraki gracefully withdrew a small envelope from inside his jacket. "The results confirm everything I've told you."

But Tsuzuki had had enough. He tore the envelope from the other's fingers and ripped it in half without looking at the contents.

"Is that wise?" Muraki asked him. "You wanted proof—"

"Proof of what! This is nothing but a piece of paper!" Tsuzuki waved it derisively in one hand as he said so. "And there's nothing to keep you from writing lies on a piece of paper. I know how you work. This is just another part of your game to get me to become what you think I am, what you think I should be. But I won't. I won't fall for it, Muraki, not this time. It doesn't prove anything!"

"But it is no lie!" Muraki said as he closed the distance remaining between them. Tsuzuki's grip on the back of the pew tightened, as did the muscles in his jaw, and he leaned against it in some vain attempt to escape, crumpling the torn pieces of paper in his fist. "You can continue to deny it, but that will not change the truth."

Tsuzuki shook his head. "No—"

"Why this anguished expression, Tsuzuki? You should be grateful, like I am. If it were not for the transgression of whatever demon gave birth to you, if it were not for your stumbling onto my grandfather's doorstep that day in nineteen-eighteen, I would never have met you, because I would never have come into being." Seeing Tsuzuki's resolve start to falter, Muraki leaned closer, bringing his lips close to the other's ear. Tsuzuki could feel the micrometer of space that separated them as Muraki whispered intimately, reverently into his ear, as if into the ear of an idol:

"I owe you my entire existence."

Tsuzuki's eyes went wide at those words, and his breath left him. Muraki's entire existence. . . .

_It's my fault_. The revelation resounded in his mind. Like music from a music box when the gears have all been wound up and released: I am to blame for his existence. I brought him to life, merely by existing myself. Each life taken by him has been on account of me. If I had never been born, he would never be alive and his crimes would never have been committed.

But he is me. He is my blood, my child.

A monster, begotten of a monster.

Tsuzuki sat down hard in the pew, too shell-shocked to speak. The back of the pew in front of him, clutched in his white-knuckled grip. The candlelit altar before his eyes came to him as a surreal vision, a nightmarish vision. He remembered this feeling very well. In the hospital, in the underground laboratory—they would not leave him in peace. All those tiny flickering flames, the thousands of flickering flames—they were as numerous as his sins. Yet they could not burn him up, no matter how badly he wanted them to. They were too small, too weak. Too separate to make a difference. Not one body but a thousand little bodies, piled up against him, each one standing in judgment of him. Each one screaming silently: _You should never have been brought into this world._

_Your very existence is a sin. It is a blasphemy against nature._

_Your very existence threatens all who come in contact with you._ Like those flames themselves, burning everything they touched. But how could he have known?

He was not aware of Muraki kneeling down beside his pew, watching him in his horror. He was only shaken from his thoughts when Muraki brushed the hair gently from the side of his face, tucking it behind his ear.

"That's right. Let that knowledge wash over you." His whisper carried the intimacy of a lover, or a mother singing her child to sleep. His eyes never wavered from Tsuzuki's behind his glasses. "Let it be absorbed into you, and baptize you into its darkness. That is where you and I both belong—where we awaken to our true selves. You cannot kill this monster without first destroying yourself, therefore stop resisting. It does no one any good. I know it is frightening, I know it's painful, but you will learn to endure it." He let the palm of his hand linger against Tsuzuki's cold, bloodless cheek as he said, "There will be no burning down of churches or schools tonight. Save your anger for those who deserve it. The ones who mistrust you, who keep you a slave for their designs—they deserve to be put in their place, and you deserve to make them bend to your will."

Placing his hand on the pew, Muraki leaned closer to murmur directly into Tsuzuki's ear: "Enma knows you are capable of that and so much more. That is why he fears you. Don't remain a slave to his will any longer, Tsuzuki. Wake up and realize what you were made to do."

"And then what, Muraki? What happens when I do embrace my destiny? Does it only stop once I've torn down Heaven itself?"

The smile fell from Muraki's lips, and he backed away as Tsuzuki slowly raised himself to his feet, Lazarus returned from the dead. Tsuzuki did not bother to hide his hatred from the doctor. It shone clearly in his narrowed eyes, which burned crimson from the candles' light. Did Muraki think he would be grateful to learn these things? That he would throw away everything he had carefully built himself up to be over more than seven decades in an instant? He would not be so easily swayed by Muraki's persuasive manner as his naive patients, and the doctor visibly sobered when he understood that.

"You have been lied to," he answered simply, "kept ignorant of your true nature. You deserve so much more than this meager existence. More than what that boy, in his ignorance, could possibly promise you."

"And you know just how I can get there?" Tsuzuki said. "You have all the answers? Why should I believe your motives are any different from Enma's, if what you say is true? You just want my power for your own evil purposes. Maybe I should begin correcting those sins you spoke of here and now, starting with you."

Muraki's assured smile returned at that. "I considered that you might try to kill me, when I debated over whether or not to tell you the truth about myself. I decided to place my trust in the bet that if you could not do it before in an altered state, it would be so much more difficult for you to do away with your own flesh and blood, no matter how suicidal you may be."

Tsuzuki's lip curled up in a snarl. Self-restraint gave way and he grabbed the lapels of Muraki's jacket in both hands roughly, and pushed him against the side of the pew across the aisle. "Care to test that theory, Doctor?"

Said doctor, however, appeared unmoved. His smile fell but he met Tsuzuki's gaze calmly, without fear.

"Yes," he said slowly, as though daring Tsuzuki. "I do."

"Why? Because if I fail you'll see this endeavor as a success? Or do you really want to die that badly?"

"I did once. Four years ago I even welcomed the thought that I might put an end to my suffering." It made Tsuzuki's blood boil anew to hear him speak as if he, Muraki, were the victim in all this, but the doctor went on: "There was something appealing about going together. You must have wanted to put an end to your own life even more than I did. But things have changed since then. Haven't they, Tsuzuki? You and I had to find new reasons for living, and we've become rather attached to this world all over again."

"I'll help you break that attachment," Tsuzuki growled. The voice of hatred that arose from within him felt alien, but he embraced it as his own. The candles' flames flickered and weakened though there was no draft in the church, throwing them into a fragile light, but Tsuzuki hardly noticed. The names of his shikigami were on his tongue, burning to be called. Waiting for the right moment. "I have no qualms with ending you. I can make it so you'll never be reborn. I can make it so Enma himself won't be able find your soul in ten-thousand years."

Muraki lowered his voice. "Please, Tsuzuki. Oblivion would be a mercy."

"In that case, you deserve to burn!"

"If that is so, then let it be by your hands alone." And so saying, Muraki put his hands around Tsuzuki's wrists, thereby holding the shinigami's grip in place. A hard edge entered his voice, as though he were trying to drive his words bodily into Tsuzuki. "I will not accept death by one of your minions. Only you can condemn me, Tsuzuki. Only you have the right to take my life. It is your responsibility."

That's right, Tsuzuki thought. It _is_ my responsibility. He is my flesh and blood. This sin is my right to rectify. . . .

But his hands shook around the material of Muraki's jacket. He could feel his anger and hatred toward the doctor, and toward everything that had brought them to this point, coursing through him down to those hands, needing only an outlet. His body could be that outlet, if he allowed it to be. So what was he waiting for?

"Why do you hesitate?" Muraki muttered through his teeth. "Kill me, Tsuzuki. End this here and now, with God as your witness. Isn't that your sacred duty as a shinigami?"

What's wrong with you, Tsuzuki? echoed the voice of his conscience. Do as he says. He's begging you to do it! There was no shortage of motivation if Tsuzuki only searched his memory. No one would fault him for taking his revenge. Putting a stop to Muraki at this very moment would be nothing short of a triumph for Meifu, and for the order and justice that it represented as an institution.

_For Meifu. . . ._ But what did that even mean anymore?

"I can't."

Those simple words hurt so much to utter, Tsuzuki could hardly get them out. Hot tears that seemed to well up from nowhere blurred his vision. This was not the outcome he wanted. He wanted to destroy Muraki, with all his being he wanted that, just like that man was asking him to—just like he'd been aching to do for so many years. To finally have justice for the wrongs committed against him, against Hisoka. He wasn't supposed to be this weak.

On the other hand, he had never asked for this cup to be placed before him either.

When Muraki for once had nothing to say, Tsuzuki pushed him harder against the pew. But he received no reaction, no change. He couldn't bear it. "You bastard! I won't forgive you for this!" His voice's harsh echoing beneath the high ceiling of the nave was his only response. He got nothing from Muraki, no taunts that could drive him over whatever invisible barrier held him back. The lifeless gazes of the statues that bracketed the altar likewise stared down at him without sympathy, without condemnation.

Without anything. He could expect no help on this one. Tsuzuki alone had the right—as Muraki had said—to end all of it, to set it all right, and he could do nothing.

-o-

Fujisawa's rich laughter rang in Hisoka's ears as the boy lay beside him, basking in the afterglow of his feeding. Hisoka's lips still tingled from their kiss, and he could not seem to get rid of the coppery taste of his own blood that was left on his tongue. As he stared up at the ceiling of the hallway, glowing ghostily from the lighted circle beneath them, the first peals of thunder began from some lightning strike far in the distance.

Craning his neck to try and see out the windows, Fujisawa remarked, "The real storm is just beginning. The news did promise it would be biblical. Guess everything up till now was just foreplay."

Hisoka had nothing to say. It was like the cherry grove of so many years ago all over again. Humiliated, violated, half undressed and vulnerable, the marks of his curse so sensitive he burned as if scalded everywhere Fujisawa moved against him. Fujisawa's reawakening of the doctor's curse was something Hisoka could not reconcile in his person. It was one thing for the man who had placed it on him to command it; it was quite another for an outsider to know that most intimate of secrets, let alone an outsider who was not shy about expressing his physical desires.

The one difference he could take consolation in was that he had been through all this and worse before. He had nothing more to fear. And whatever else he was, Fujisawa was no Muraki. Hisoka knew he had to keep his mind focused, despite the pain. How long Fujisawa planned to keep him there, he could not know.

And where the hell was Tsuzuki?

"_Naa_, Kurosaki." Fujisawa rolled himself over to face Hisoka, encircling one arm about his bare waist. His familiarity sent a shiver of disgust down Hisoka's spine. "What's the matter? Cat got your tongue? This is the night of our lives, and you don't have anything to say."

"I'll kill you for this. I swear."

That made the other boy laugh. "Oh, I don't doubt it."

"You're not afraid of that?"

"Not particularly. I've died before. Besides, if you know you're just going to die, and there's no point in struggling to stay alive in this world anyway, you might as well get all you can out of what time you have left." Fujisawa chuckled. "And anyway, I have you inside me now. I always thought it would be the other way around, but." He shrugged. "What can I say? You just feel so good."

"Too bad for you it's only a temporary high. Muraki probably didn't tell you the whole truth about me. We shinigami don't have real bodies in the normal sense. You might feel full now, but in a shorter while than you think, your stomach will be empty and I'll have all my strength back. You won't have accomplished anything—"

Fujisawa grabbed the front of Hisoka's shirt and slammed his shoulder into the floor, leaning over him once again. "Why would Sensei lie to me about that? I wonder if I should put what you're saying to the test myself. What would happen, do you think, if I drained you dry right now?"

The cocky grin was long gone from his features and his eyes wild as he reached for the tanto again, and this time held the naked blade to Hisoka's throat.

Hisoka went still on instinct at the cold touch of steel, but he willed himself to remain defiant. Another strike of lightning lit the hall, closer this time as the thunder that followed it attested, and under its light Hisoka caught a vague glimpse of the struggle beneath Fujisawa's veneer before his features softened and he put the sword up again.

"What does it matter?" he said. "I have the upper hand here. I can do whatever I want. And if no amount of blood is going to do any good. . . ." The fingers that had just been gripping the handle of the sword crawled leisurely down Hisoka's side, inflaming his flesh wherever they went. "I'll just take my reward some other way."

"Don't—" Hisoka choked out, trying in vain to squirm away from Fujisawa's touch, but it only seemed to provoke him further. The lust he emitted was overpowering.

Fujisawa just shook his head. "I've been dreaming of this for four years," he said. What made Hisoka think he would stop now?

Hisoka bit his lip hard enough to draw blood when he felt Fujisawa's mouth on his breastbone, those long fingers unbuttoning his jeans. Everything he did recalled Muraki's image: the sound of his breathing, his smell—a combination of cigarettes and iodine and the earth and mist. All so well, Hisoka's subconscious mind could hardly distinguish between the two, though he clearly saw a high school boy on top of him, tugging at his belt loops. There was no wet grass beneath him, no blooming cherries looming over, just the dead fluorescent fixtures ubiquitous to every school, yet somehow it felt exactly the same.

Every calculated touch against his bare skin put him into an agony that should have been impossible for anyone besides Muraki to conjure—unless this, too, the doctor had orchestrated personally. He alone knew Hisoka as well as that.

Fujisawa's hand slipped inside the front of his underwear, and Hisoka could not hold back any longer.

He cried out. "Tsuzuki!"

The other boy got a good laugh at that. He exhaled sharply and warm against Hisoka's stomach. "Your partner isn't coming to save you, Kurosaki. Can't you see he's left you to fend for yourself?" Then on second thought, he added as he wrapped his fingers around Hisoka: "Or are you calling for him because you want him to do this to you?"

"Ah—" Hisoka gasped. His hips jerked at that touch. He couldn't help his body's automatic reaction, and he resented that almost more than the rest. It would have been better if Fujisawa had simply killed him. "You bastard!" he managed, though it could not prevent the other from slipping between his legs.

Then something came free. Fujisawa let out a long groan against Hisoka's skin and doubled over. But it wasn't in pleasure, as his growled "Fuck!" seemed to indicate. And Hisoka was sure he had not been imagining his knee colliding with the side of the other boy's ribcage. It felt too good to have been imagined.

He turned his head. The circle of light that had seemed burned into the floorboards was flickering and dimming, and with it Hisoka could feel its hold on him weakening.

Apparently Fujisawa noticed it too. He recovered quickly from the blow. Hisoka tugged his arm free and propped himself up. But just as quickly, Fujisawa pushed him back down with an elbow in his sternum, using Hisoka's body as leverage to push himself to his feet, grabbing at the tanto over Hisoka's shoulder as he did so.

He was going to get away again. But now that Hisoka had control of his faculties—and the circle had disintegrated without a trace—he had the upper hand, or at least an equal chance, and he would not allow that to happen. Tsuzuki must be close by, he thought, and with his hope renewed, he twisted around, grabbed hold of Fujisawa's legs and pulled. The other boy fell to the floor with a grunt, the short sword clattering away just out of reach.

They struggled on the hard floor for a few moments, before a few well-placed kicks forced Hisoka to loosen his hold and Fujisawa scrambled away. Hisoka was determined this time not to let him get far. Raising himself to his feet, he clasped his hands together and concentrated his energies on Fujisawa. If the older boy would not stand still enough for him to send him back to Meifu, Hisoka would make him stand still. He would take his soul by force right there. Knowing that he would put Fujisawa in awful pain in the process was, not surprisingly, not a deterrent.

He could feel the energy amassing about him as he began to speak the _reibaku_: "_Rin. Pyo. To—_"

Hisoka got no further than that. The shooting pain in his side forced the breath from his lungs and shattered his concentration. He opened his eyes and met Fujisawa's, glowing unnaturally beneath the light of the mark on his forehead. Perhaps in his fear of letting the older boy escape, Hisoka should have realized how close Fujisawa actually was.

Hisoka managed one pained, hitched breath before Fujisawa pushed him back against the outside wall and its cold windows. The blade of the tanto he held in his hands slid deeper into his side, until Hisoka could feel the hilt pressing into his stomach, the point of the blade scraping the plaster from the wall at his back. "You're not gonna get rid of me that easily, shinigami," Fujisawa said through his own labored breathing.

An ironic smile coming unbidden to his lips, Hisoka wrapped both hands around Fujisawa's, keeping the sword inside his body. He was well aware his wound would not heal that way, and the blood he could already feel beginning to soak his shirt and jeans would continue to flow, but right now it felt more important to keep Fujisawa close. If Tsuzuki had found the source of the pentagram, he couldn't be far away. Which meant an end to all this wasn't far away either. "I thought you said you were prepared to die. For your master."

"Not before I take you with me." Fujisawa grinned, but it was not without pain on his end as well. The blow Hisoka dealt him must have still smarted. "We'll die like lovers, together," he whispered. "I know you'll just come back. But it's a fitting end for people like us, don't you think? People abandoned by God."

"You abandoned him yourself," Hisoka hissed back, grimacing at the weight being leaned on his wound.

Fujisawa shook his head slowly at that. "Come now, Kurosaki. Is that really what you believe?"

Hisoka never had a chance to answer. He felt the sting in his other side before he heard the shot rebounding. He looked down to see dark blood spattered across the side of his chest, and it was a second before he realized that most of it was not his. Fujisawa had hardly uttered a cry. He must have been in shock himself, he merely went still against Hisoka as he too looked down between them in disbelief, and gingerly put his fingers to the exit wound the bullet had made below his ribcage.

When he spun around to face his attacker, Hisoka started. Over the older boy's shoulder he saw Jun, on his feet and unharmed, his face set with resolve, the pistol leveled at the two of them.

"You sneaky little prick," Fujisawa muttered with a forced laugh, and Jun fired again.

This time Fujisawa cried out as the second shot clipped his arm. The bullet flew by so close Hisoka could feel the window glass being pierced beside him. Letting go of the tanto's handle, Fujisawa grabbed his own shoulder as he stumbled back against the wall.

That was when Jun saw Hisoka. His eyes went wide and he lowered the pistol. "Kurosaki?" He didn't seem able to believe his eyes.

Then his gaze lowered to the sword through Hisoka's side. And the gunshot wound for which he had been responsible. "Oh my God, you're bleeding," he breathed and rushed toward him.

"No shit," Fujisawa said as he looked on.

"You're hurt really bad. I can't believe I shot you." Holding the gun in one hand, Jun reached into his pocket for his cell phone with the other. "I'm calling for help."

"You don't have to," Hisoka told him, grimacing as he pulled the short sword from his side. It was bad enough being caught by Jun like this, but he feared having to explain himself to any other party. "It's alright."

"Are you insane? You'll bleed out. I'm calling—"

"I said don't!"

The force in his tone of voice made Jun pause.

"Listen to him," Fujisawa said. "You don't need to bring the authorities into this—"

"Shut up! I'm not done with you!" Jun aimed the gun at him again, but the threat came too late to keep Fujisawa quiet now.

"You stupid ass!" he shot back. "Nice job of avenging your friend. You couldn't even shoot me straight when my back was turned!"

"I didn't miss!" Jun turned back to Hisoka, shaking his head. "Kurosaki, I'm so sorry—"

"Don't apologize for that," Hisoka said. "I told you, I'll be alright." Even as he said so, he could feel his body's tissues beginning to stitch themselves back together. He raised his shirt to expose his stomach, ignoring the mild embarrassment of an open fly. He knew Jun's eyes were trained on his wounds anyway, as he watched the boy's expression change from one of concern to horror.

And then the pistol was leveled at him.

"What the hell are you?" Jun's voice wavered and the gun shook in his hand. "Are you a demon? Were you the one who made that satanic mark? Don't make me shoot you again!" he warned when Hisoka made a motion toward him.

Hisoka put his hand up in surrender. "I'm not a demon," he said slowly as he met Jun's eyes. "I swear to you. I didn't want to tell you before, because I didn't want to put you in any more danger, but I'm not a normal person. I'm a shinigami, and I came here for the same reason you did: to get justice for your friend."

Jun shook his head. "No." He looked close to tears, for which Hisoka could not blame him. "I don't believe in that sort of stuff!"

"I understand that. I know this is a lot to take in, but I'm standing here just the same, trying to help you. Fujisawa has to return with me to be judged. He has to die."

The boy in question snorted at that. Apparently there was something for even him to find humorous in his grave situation.

"What's going to happen to him?" Jun said in a small voice. "He murdered Toshio—"

"And he'll pay for it," Hisoka told him. "I'll see to that."

Another roll of thunder shook the building beneath their feet, though it seemed the worst of the storm had passed over the school. Fujisawa laughed when its last echoes had died away, and peered out the window into the rain. The other two turned to him.

"What's so funny?"

"I was just thinking of Sensei, and how he must be doing with your partner, Kurosaki. I just wonder if he's having as much fun as I am."

Hisoka started at that. _Tsuzuki._ He'd forgotten all about him when Jun showed up. But the sheer fact that Jun was the one who had set him free from Fujisawa's trap meant he had been wrong about Tsuzuki. Most likely he wasn't as close by as previously thought. For all Hisoka knew, he might not have even been in the building at all.

And if Muraki had him all to himself, then there was nothing to stop him from hurting Tsuzuki again. Hisoka could not imagine what that might entail, but he had some idea of the consequences, and he dreaded them with his whole being.

He had been an idiot. He should never have left Tsuzuki's side.

"Where is he?" he asked Fujisawa.

"You'd like to know that, wouldn't you?"

"Asshole, I don't have time to play around!"

In response, Fujisawa merely turned his gaze back out the window, and this time Hisoka followed it to the church that sat out there in the dark. That came as no surprise. In hindsight, he should have figured it out earlier.

Hisoka wiped what remained of his own blood from the blade of his short sword, and found its scabbard. "What about me?" Fujisawa said after him, while a perplexed Jun followed him with his eyes.

Hisoka gave him a good once-over. "You're finished."

"Tch—"

"Jun can end this himself, just like he planned."

"What?" Jun started. "No! No, wait a minute, Kurosaki. You told me before you didn't _want_ me to take matters into my own hands."

For some reason Hisoka couldn't explain, the other boy's reaction riled him. "Well, it's a little late for that now, isn't it? None of us would be in this mess if you hadn't gotten it into your head you were going to kill this guy for what he did." It wasn't like him, Hisoka knew, but he couldn't help blaming Jun in some way for what had happened—for the agony and humiliation Fujisawa had put him through, and for putting himself in danger—even if Jun's guilt lay only in his ignorance. "So what makes you think you have the right to back out now?"

Jun couldn't come up with an answer. He merely stared dumbfounded at Hisoka.

Not that Hisoka could believe he was treating the kid this way, after what they had been through over the last week. But Jun had to wake up. Hisoka was tired of fixing things for everyone else.

"What?" he said. "Did you think it would be easy to take someone's life?" Even years after the fact, he still woke up sometimes swearing he could feel Tsubaki's blood on his hands, wet and stuck in the creases. He knew the lives he was forced to take still haunted his partner; Hisoka could feel that for himself sometimes, when Tsuzuki wasn't careful.

"But this isn't how it was supposed to happen."

"How was it supposed to happen, then, Jun?" Hisoka asked him. "You almost lost your life for it, so you tell me. He's already going to die from what you did to him." He nodded toward Fujisawa, who looked on with an oddly distant expression. "What you do now . . . you'll just have to figure that out for yourself. I'm leaving."

Hisoka waited a moment for an answer from either of them, but none came. They simply stared at him: the one, bleeding freely, as though trying to memorize a face he knew he wouldn't see again; the other in disbelief, silently entreating Hisoka to say something, anything different.

But Hisoka was not in any mood to humor Jun. Nor did he have the time to spare. Maybe it wasn't the best decision he could have made in his position, but he refused to go back on it. He turned and hurried to the stairwell and down the steps, heading for the church. Fujisawa's fate was in that boy's hands now. Jun had forfeited the right to go back when he fired the shot that pierced them both. Neither Hisoka nor Tsuzuki, nor Muraki nor Fujisawa, had the option to start over. So what made Jun think he was any better?

By now it did not surprise Hisoka to see the church's altar lit up as it was, as though someone had had a small country's worth of prayers to offer up.

The two standing in the center aisle facing each other, however, made his heart skip a beat. Even in the dim lighting he recognized his partner and Muraki instantly, but they were not fighting, not wounded like he had been or threatening one another as Hisoka had expected to find. Rather, they seemed to be engaged in a rational conversation in voices so low Hisoka could not pick out a word.

On second glance, it appeared Muraki was doing all the talking. An arm's length away, Tsuzuki kept his head bowed in solemn—perhaps sorrowful—thought. That did not bode well with Hisoka at all.

"Tsuzuki," he said as he hurried forward, and the two turned at the sound of his voice.

Another flash of lightning outside the tall windows lit the moisture in Tsuzuki's dark eyes that stared back at him, and the lenses of Muraki's glasses. A few seconds later, the thunder followed weakly.

Hisoka clenched his fist at his side. "What are you doing?" he yelled into the space that separated them, voice echoing off the ceiling. "Tsuzuki! Kill that man!"

That effectively broke the tension between them. Muraki smiled bitterly as he said to him, "So once again you put yourself between us. You really are bothersome, boy. I guess that means Fujisawa is dead."

"He will be soon, no thanks to you."

"Hm," Muraki murmured. "That really is a pity."

Right, Hisoka thought, like he really cared what happened to the other boy. The doctor didn't even bother to hide how amused he was by the whole thing.

"Are you all right, Hisoka?" Tsuzuki asked him.

"Fine," Hisoka said shortly, even though he wasn't. That was all Tsuzuki needed to know at present—and Muraki, for that matter.

Naturally the doctor seemed to see right through him. He turned again to Tsuzuki. "My apologies, Tsuzuki. It seems I was mistaken to make you worry about your partner. I should have known he wouldn't let my boy's games get the best of him after all."

Hisoka growled a nasty epithet, but the other ignored it.

"So there's no reason to feel guilty. You made the right decision in staying and listening to my story."

Tsuzuki inhaled sharply and turned his head, and Hisoka, catching all of it—feeling that sudden shooting pain in his chest as though it were his own—concentrated all his anger at that man he once swore to destroy if it was the last thing he did. "Muraki, what did you say to him?"

"Only the truth. About where we came from, and how he is being deceived by the institution—"

"Liar!" Hisoka silenced him. "The only one deceiving him is you! What the hell did you _do_ to him? Tsuzuki," he said to his partner, "he'll say anything to break you—you _know_ that! This is just like Kyoto. You can _fight_ this—"

"How noble of you, boy." Muraki looked down his nose at him, as though he was surprised Hisoka had the audacity to challenge him. "Trying to protect the person you love. But you're too late, and in your ignorance you are gravely mistaken. Tsuzuki knows in his heart I'm right, and that's all that ultimately matters. He can tell you himself—"

"Tsuzuki," Hisoka tried again, screaming over him, "what are you waiting for? Finish him now!"

But Tsuzuki only shook his head at him, brows knit in the anguish that kept him from action. "I can't."

Hisoka gritted his teeth. He had been wounded he didn't know how many times tonight and made to worry sick—he was fed up with playing games. Especially Muraki's. He projected a wave of energy at the doctor, aiming to crush him flesh and bone. However, Muraki raised a shield around himself, just like Hisoka knew he would, that flashed white as it and the pews next to him absorbed the brunt of the blast. Candles flickered under the shock wave and went out, plunging them into a grotesque half-light. While the doctor was distracted, Hisoka unsheathed his tanto and charged. Tsuzuki may have been hesitant for some reason Hisoka wasn't yet aware of, but he had been longing for just such an opportunity as this for the better part of a decade. He had devoted his free time to developing the strength and the skill to finally overcome that man, and he had come too far to waste his chance.

He felt his blade strike something soft as he stepped through the dying traces of his first attack, but the doctor would not be caught off his guard so easily. Though wounded, he had the presence of mind to grab hold of Hisoka and propel him by his own momentum into the pews, pinning one arm behind the boy's back. The sword clattered away out of sight. Hisoka grunted. In his anger he had let his defenses slip, and through that vise-like grip around his arm he experienced all of Muraki's resentment toward him, unsure whether the doctor was actually snarling something about eliminating him for good or if he only heard that in his mind.

What he did hear clearly was Tsuzuki's voice behind him: "Muraki, stop! Leave him alone!" Then the doctor was yanked off of him.

Hisoka stared wide-eyed at the seat he had landed on as, released with a snap from Muraki's emotions, he struggled to get his bearings. Was he just imagining things, or had Tsuzuki's way of addressing Muraki changed completely since the cafe the afternoon before?

Hisoka didn't have the luxury of dwelling on it, however. He sprang to his feet and turned to face Muraki, who was struggling in Tsuzuki's grasp, his white jacket spotted with blood. His teeth were gritted—in indignation or pain, it was not clear—and his eyes, trained on Hisoka, showed nothing but bottomless hatred, even though it was Tsuzuki whose grasp threatened to tear him apart. As they struggled, something emanated from the shinigami that Hisoka had felt from his partner only in the company of devils—an all but tangible, undisciplined, unholy rage that frightened him, it was so far removed from the gentle, clear-headed Tsuzuki he worked with.

But it afforded them an opportunity. Hisoka wasted no more time. He clasped his hands together, prepared to separate Muraki's soul from his body, only anxious now about what he might find when he did so.

He never got that far. Sensing he was caught in a losing battle, Muraki disappeared just as he had before in a swirl of white that left Tsuzuki clutching at air.

"_No_, goddamn it! You coward!" he wailed as he collapsed against the side of a pew. His frustration almost bowled Hisoka over, before he raised his defenses once again and put a calming hand on Tsuzuki's shoulder.

As he did so, Hisoka looked around the interior of the church, but he could sense no lingering trace of the doctor. He knew how Tsuzuki felt, even if he did not express it so overtly: They had had Muraki within their grasp, and he had managed to slip away once again.

Two torn pieces of paper lying wrinkled on the parquet grabbed Hisoka's attention and he bent to pick them up. On closer inspection he saw it was an unmarked envelope. He began to ask Tsuzuki what it was, but his partner snatched it away, muttering as he crumpled it in his fist, "It's nothing, Hisoka. Don't pay this any attention."

It was hard not to when he said that, but Hisoka did not press the issue further. As his partner rose to his feet, he began slowly, "Tsuzuki, why didn't you do anything? Why did you just stand there while Muraki was defenseless? I thought we had an understanding, that it's our job to bring his soul to Meifu—"

"I just couldn't do it. Okay?"

That only made Hisoka bristle. Try as he might, he was finding it hard to find the strength to be sympathetic tonight. "What's_wrong_ with you?"

"I don't know!" Tsuzuki rounded on him. "I don't know what's gotten into me. Alright? I wish I could tell you I did, Hisoka, but I'm sorry. I genuinely am. Is that what you want to hear? I'm sorry."

No, it wasn't. He wanted an explanation. He wanted to know what Tsuzuki was obviously hiding from him.

But Hisoka took a breath and forced himself to let it go. Berating the man further wasn't going to get anything out of him except more pain.

Tsuzuki changed the subject for him. "What about the kid? Jun? You find him?"

"I left him to take care of Fujisawa. That guy's a goner one way or another. He'll be arriving back in Meifu before long." A thought suddenly seized Hisoka: "But Muraki . . . he could be heading back that way as we speak. It would be just like him, to get us back for this."

Tsuzuki shook his head. "He isn't heading back to the school. He'll be on his way to somewhere far away from here."

Hisoka wanted to ask him how he knew that—his partner's finality and distant expression bothered him inexplicably—but a dark shape lying across the pew behind Tsuzuki grabbed his attention. He stiffened. It appeared to be a dead body.

Tsuzuki followed his gaze to the unconscious form of the priest himself. "It's nothing, Hisoka." His manner was uncharacteristically dismissive. "He'll be fine." He gently removed his long coat from beneath the man's head and shrugged it on, then picked up Muraki's own discarded coat from where he had left it. "But we should be heading back," he said. "The chief will be wanting our report right away on this one."

When Hisoka said nothing, Tsuzuki managed to flash him a slight smile. "Besides, we don't want to get caught here. We've caused enough trouble as it is without needing to explain ourselves to the local authorities. I think I've caused them more than enough trouble all by myself."

Hisoka was so focused on the fragility of that smile it took him a moment to pick out the whine of police sirens that pierced the sound of the rain. It was so faint even now, he wondered how Tsuzuki had managed to catch it.

-o-

With a grunt, Fujisawa lowered himself to his knees and sat back on his heels, leaning his back against the wall. The bullet wound in his gut spurted fresh blood at that, but he managed to keep calm despite the pain. Somehow it helped to know that whatever discomfort he felt now would soon be over. Once upon a time he would have thought it would be the other way around, but he actually preferred to stare death in the face like this, to see it coming rather than be taken by surprise. At least this way he could decide what final thoughts he took with him to that dark place.

Now he knew what those martyrs Mitani had once told him about felt when they were led to their scaffolds, except unlike them he had no more love left within him for the maker he would be meeting. It had all been taken by the devil who led him here. And without regret.

"If you're going to do this, you'd better do it right," he told Jun. He lifted the hair out of his eyes and pointed to his forehead, specifically to the right-most of the three characters written across it. "Shoot here, right through this character. You understand?"

His underclassman obviously hated being talked to like a child. "Why?"

"Why should you care? That's just the way it has to be done. Quickly, without hesitation. And for Christ's sake, Inoue, this time . . . don't miss?"

Jun scowled as he leveled the pistol at the spot Fujisawa indicated. "I don't need you to tell me how to do it."

But that wasn't enough for the older boy to be sure. He grabbed the barrel with his bloodied hand and pulled it toward him so that the muzzle rested cool against his forehead. Colder, he thought fondly, than the cleaver. The action seemed to take Jun aback, but he didn't flinch, and that made Fujisawa grin. "Just don't wimp out on me, then. Make your friend proud."

Jun bristled at that. "I'm not going to pray for you, you know," he said. "I'm not that good a Christian."

"I wouldn't expect you to."

Fujisawa smiled to himself as he closed his eyes and waited for the bang. He didn't want the other boy's face to be the last thing he saw when he died any more than Jun would want to see the life leave his eyes.

With a sharp intake of breath, Jun tried to brace himself as best he could, but there was no position one could get into for something like this that would put him at ease. There was nothing left to do but pull the trigger.

-o-

_All units respond to shots fired at Sacred Heart High School._

That message coming through the radio as Asai sped through the driving rain sent chills down Imai's spine. He would have hated to be in Inoue's shoes right now, to say the least. When that report came in outside the game center they were canvassing, his only hope was that the one responsible for it was Inoue's son. Strange that he would actually hope to have the boy be found guilty of a serious crime, but it was preferable a thousand times over to finding Jun shot dead.

The school building was pitch black when the patrol cars arrived, lit only by their flashing lights reflecting off the water that ran down everything. The orders given to the armed officers to cover the exits seemed to break the monotony created by the rain almost irreverently. The place was quiet as a tomb—an analogy Imai hated to make. He slammed the car door behind him like one would clap their hands to drive off an evil spirit, and exchanged glances with Asai and Inoue as they headed inside behind the officers. He didn't know what to say to the latter. Somehow "Everything's going to be fine" seemed too weak a thing to say to someone whose son was possibly in mortal danger.

The first floor was deemed clear and they proceeded up the stairs. There was no sign of life on the second level either.

A faint scuffing sound on the floor above them made Imai start. He waved for an officer to back him up and bounded up the steps toward it, reaching for his badge as he did so. He only hoped whoever was up there was not so desperate as to try and take on a sizable portion of the Kumamoto police force all by himself.

Imai need not have been so worried. There were two figures slumped against the opposite walls of the hall, but neither of them seemed to be moving until he stepped toward them. At the sound of his cautious footsteps, one of them turned his head, and Imai recognized the dimly lit face that stared back at him as Jun's. Inoue's pistol was clutched tightly in both his hands between his legs, still pointing in the direction of the other body.

"Up here," Imai called over his shoulder to the others.

Inoue jogged past him toward his son's side. "Jun?"

Jun started. "Dad?" For a moment, he could only look up at Inoue like he thought he was hallucinating.

Imai watched as Inoue knelt down by the boy's side without so much as glancing at the other person. "Thank God," he breathed. "Are you injured?"

He never heard the boy's response because no sooner had Inoue spoken than Jun dropped the gun and threw both arms around the detective's neck. Scrawny though he seemed next to his father, he looked like he would crush Inoue with his embrace, his grip was so tight as he stared unblinking over his father's shoulder.

Imai tore his eyes away from the two and turned his attention to the other body. Inoue had been right not to pay it any concern. The teenage boy it had once been was bleeding from three wounds, none as serious as the one to the head. There was no way he could have survived. The dark spatter on the wall behind him testified to that. It struck Imai as strange, then, that he had such a peaceful expression stuck on his face, like someone who was having a pleasant dream.

"He's dead, all right," Asai sighed as he came up beside Imai, placing his hands on his hips.

Imai couldn't bring himself to tear his eyes from the boy's face. "Is that him?"

"Fujisawa? Yeah, it's him. I couldn't forget that face if I wanted to."

Neither could Imai, and this was the first time he had actually seen the boy in the flesh. The whole experience was surreal. First the photographs, then the bizarre truth Asai had uncovered from Nagasaki. And now a corpse. If it was indeed the same boy, Imai still found it near impossible to acknowledge that the body before him had ever been alive to begin with, let alone mere minutes before they arrived.

Asai lowered his voice. No doubt he was thinking the same thing. "Do you think this can be treated as a case of self-defense?"

Imai glanced over at Inoue, who was gently rocking his son in his arms and whispering something that was meant for just the two of them. But it was Jun that Imai was concerned about, and the vacant look in his eyes. Whatever Jun was seeing, it was not something to which Imai could relate, having never killed a man himself. All he knew was that Jun looked paler and younger now than they had ever seen him, not at all the same boy who had waltzed into the station earlier that evening, lied to him and Asai, and stolen his father's sidearm.

Imai found he did not have an answer for his partner.


	8. And the damage is done

It was past one in the morning already when Tatsumi finally packed up his work, turned off the light, and closed the door to Konoe's office. He did not expect to see anyone on his way out, so when he caught sight of movement inside the dark room, he stopped in his tracks.

The shadow user did not need lights to recognize the figure sitting at Tsuzuki's desk as Tsuzuki himself. But Tatsumi had thought he and Kurosaki were still out on a case.

He stepped further into the dark room, and tried as amiably as he could at this hour of night: "Good morning, Tsuzuki. What brings you here this late—or early, as the case may be?"

He regretted that tone of voice when Tsuzuki turned to him. He had the very look in his eyes that Tatsumi dreaded: the look that had frightened him so in Kyoto, and the day before they broke their partnership decades before. The look that spelled a coming storm. "Just thinking . . . about things," Tsuzuki answered with a smile that was, if possible, even more forced than Tatsumi's.

That was when Tatsumi noticed he was soaked to the bone. "Goodness, Tsuzuki, it must be pouring buckets in Kumamoto."

"I'm sorry. I'll mop up later."

"No, it isn't that—" Honestly, that had not crossed Tatsumi's mind, and he wondered if Tsuzuki really thought he was so callous as that. He adjusted his glasses. "It's just that I'm not used to seeing you at this time of night, let alone soaking wet. Did something come up in your investigation?" Concern pricked him suddenly and he said in a lower voice, "Is Kurosaki alright?"

"He's fine. At least, he says he is. I dropped him off at his apartment so he could get some rest." Tsuzuki turned back to the top of the desk, where Tatsumi now noticed he was playing with two torn pieces of paper, smoothing out the wrinkles in a distracted manner. He said to those pieces of paper, "The investigation is over, Tatsumi. We got our man—that is, the boy whose soul was stolen from our system. He'll probably be processed in the morning."

"And Muraki?"

A bitter smile, almost a wince. "He got away again."

Tatsumi didn't know what to say to that. Somehow every response he could think of sounded trite and flat. Feeling awkward, he looked away instead.

He wasn't ready for Tsuzuki confession: "I let him get away."

Tatsumi stared at him. He must have heard that wrong, or else Tsuzuki was being vague out of guilt again. Tatsumi asked the most ambiguous question he could think of. "Why?"

"I don't know. That's what I've been trying to figure out." Tsuzuki was quiet for a moment, then said in a small, cracked voice, "He said I was his father. Well, not in such blunt terms, but he said we have the same DNA, and this piece of paper is supposed to prove it." He gestured to the wrinkled sheets in front of himself and forced a laugh. "I don't know what I'm supposed to make of it. Is it another trick, or is it real? How am I supposed to know whether I can trust him?"

That was not something Tatsumi wanted to think about. He was too stunned by what Tsuzuki had said to even acknowledge it. "Why are you telling me this?" Why did Tatsumi have to bear his burdens time and time again?

"You're the only one I can trust, even now."

"What about Kurosaki? Haven't you told him?"

"No. I'm not even sure I can. I mean," Tsuzuki said with a sigh, "if you were Hisoka, and you went through what he experienced, is that something you would want to hear? That the person you're supposed to be able to trust most was responsible for everything that went wrong in your life? I don't know what that would do to him, and I'm too scared to find out. I don't think I could bear it if I lost him, Tatsumi. He's become too important to me. He brought me back to life."

That old feeling like he was trespassing somewhere he didn't belong returned to Tatsumi full-force at his old partner's confession. It was not every day Tsuzuki was so forthcoming, or so eloquent, about such deep-seated feelings, which meant the fact that he was tonight was not a good sign.

"Tsuzuki, have you been drinking?"

Tsuzuki paused at that. "Just a little," he said. Then, "But you won't tell him, will you?"

"What? That you had a drink this late or that Muraki wants you to think you two are related?" By the way Tsuzuki's eyes widened, Tatsumi knew his way of phrasing the question had been effective. At this moment, with things the way they were, it seemed best to shy away from anything that could not be parceled out in absolutes. "It's not my place to tell him something like that. You can decide that for yourself, when you're good and ready. If you're ever ready."

Tatsumi expected to leave it at that, but he had barely turned toward the door when Tsuzuki asked: "Do you think Enma knows?"

"How should I know?"

That was apparently the wrong thing to say. "I don't know, Tatsumi," Tsuzuki muttered. "You tell me."

Tatsumi was taken aback. "Tell you what? Frankly, I don't know what you're talking about."

Tsuzuki looked up at him, eyes narrowed. "Don't you? What with all the secrecy around here lately, the chief's secret meetings with Enma, your private conversations with Hisoka?" He trailed off, and Tatsumi felt a shiver run down his spine. Just how much did Tsuzuki know about Konoe's recent absences? "I know you're all hiding something from me. There's something you don't want me to hear. I know that much. So what is it? Am I as dangerous as Muraki says? Is that why I'm being purposefully kept out of the loop?"

"Now I'm sure I don't know what this is all about." Tasumi couldn't remember being purposeful about anything where Tsuzuki was concerned—at least, no more so than usual. What he had told Kurosaki the week before had just been following Konoe's orders and nothing more; he hadn't felt a need to question the chief's motives. He had only pulled Kurosaki aside to protect Tsuzuki's feelings, not in any attempt to keep him "out of the loop". "You're being paranoid, Tsuzuki."

"Am I? Maybe that's just what you want me to think."

"No," Tatsumi told him pointedly, "that's how _Muraki_ wants you to think. He figures by undermining you he can undermine this establishment."

"And he's probably right."

Tatsumi started at that. Was he hearing what he thought he was hearing? "Watch yourself, Tsuzuki. In the right crowd a statement like that could be taken the wrong way."

"Enma and his cronies can take that however they want," the other muttered under his breath. "They don't trust me as things stand. That would just confirm the opinion they've had of me all along. Ever since I've been here, Enma's had his eye on me, hasn't he? That's why he's kept me around all this time. Why I've never been promoted, never been given a chance to leave. He's been keeping me caged up because I have something he wants for himself, and he's afraid to lose his bargaining chip."

Tatsumi exhaled sharply and turned away. "Tsuzuki, this is getting ridiculous—"

"I'm not paranoid!" His chair scraped the floor as Tsuzuki stood, staring at Tatsumi with pleading eyes the secretary did not want to see. "Look me in the eye, Tatsumi, and tell me what I'm saying isn't even just a little bit true!"

Tatsumi, however, looked stubbornly away.

"Tell me it isn't true that Enma doesn't trust me, that he thinks I'm dangerous!"

"I can't do that."

Tsuzuki nodded. "Exactly. Because you know I'm right."

"No, because what you're saying makes no sense." So Tatsumi said calmly to his old partner's face, even when his gut told him it made loads of sense. "You've been nothing but spoiled since you've come here. Throughout your entire career, King Enma has made allowances to accommodate your mistakes that no one else gets. So frankly, Tsuzuki—though it pains me to say it when you're obviously having such a difficult time—I find your behavior more than a little selfish."

"Selfish? Don't I have every right to be selfish when the issue is who, or what, I actually am? At least _you know_ what you are! At least you've always known where you came from, that you were human. But what do I have? A goddamn black hole is what I have! And let's not pretend you understand what it feels like to know everyone around you has a better idea about who you are, and what you've done, than you do yourself."

Tatsumi clenched his jaw and slowly exhaled. It was not often his patience with the other ran thin, but Tsuzuki had crossed the line. So he thinks he's the only one who ever experiences the pain of guilt? "I am not going to dignify that comment with a response."

At that Tsuzuki grabbed the lapel of his jacket and pulled him close, and Tatsumi was startled by the violence of his action. The empty coffee mug that sat on his desk shattered, though no one had touched it, and a split second later a vase nearby that Wakaba had bought flowers to put in did the same, spilling water over the side of the file cabinet.

"What do you know about me," Tsuzuki growled, "that you won't tell me, Tatsumi? What the hell am I supposed to be?"

Tatsumi had had enough already, but Tsuzuki's behavior was more than he could tolerate. It was no childish tantrum, but rather what he felt forced to consider a threat. Instinctively the dark that surrounded them twitched to attention in response to his quiet indignation. "Restrain yourself, Tsuzuki," he warned, staring the other down hard, "or I will do it for you." As it was, it took quite an effort on Tatsumi's part to calm his nerves and keep those shadows at bay, lest he do something irrational himself, and prove Tsuzuki's point.

That was not lost on Tsuzuki. He continued to glare and clench his jaw before he reluctantly let go of Tatsumi and stepped away.

His anger made him seem fragile. Like a frightened, cornered stray dog, Tatsumi thought. But oftentimes desperate men, like desperate animals, were the most dangerous.

Tsuzuki paced in the dark for a moment, first toward the windows, then away, not quite sure where he was going, before he had finally calmed himself down enough to speak again. When he did, it was back to the carefully controlled, self-depreciative tone of voice that had started their conversation. "I'm sorry, Tatsumi," he said into the dark. "I don't want to make you my enemy too."

"Do you consider King Enma your enemy now?" Tatsumi asked, following him with his eyes.

Tsuzuki thought about that. "I don't know yet. I wish I didn't have to, but that's not a choice that's mine to make, is it?"

"If you set yourself against King Enma, you set yourself against all of Meifu. You understand that, don't you?"

It was a moment before Tsuzuki could answer. But when he did it was a clear, "Yes. And don't think it's at all easy for me. But if what Muraki said about Enma is true. . . ."

He left that thought hanging. And perhaps that was for the best, Tatsumi thought. It pained him enough to see Tsuzuki in this condition—as it did every single time he fell into this fog of self-loathing and guilt and confusion. The last thing Tatsumi needed added to that burden he bore was to hear this person he cared the world about talking of betraying the demon king himself.

But even then—even though it struck his upbringing as wrong on the most fundamental of ethical levels—even though he would never have the courage to say such things himself if their situations had been reversed—could he really blame Tsuzuki for feeling that way?

I just couldn't bear to see him hurt, he told himself, any more than he could Kurosaki.

"Don't get me wrong, Tatsumi," Tsuzuki said. "Where Muraki is concerned, I intend to finish what I started. I don't know how yet, but I will. According to him, that's what I was made to do. It's my destiny. And I can't very well escape destiny, can I? Even if I wanted to."

His back lit faintly from the light in the hallway suddenly struck Tatsumi as one carrying a weight even heavier than his own—a weight like he could not imagine. He could find nothing else to say. There was nothing he had the right to say.

-o-

The room where the souls of the recently departed waited to receive judgment had always struck Hisoka as a particularly depressing place. Feelings of regret and fear and hopelessness built up over the decades of the building's existence saturated the walls, never allowed the opportunity to fully dissipate, and he could only imagine how much worse it had been in the old administration building, which had stood in Meifu for centuries until the modern era. It was for that reason more than any other that he had rarely willingly visited this place. Fortunately the memory of waiting here for his own judgment had been erased upon Enma's decision to make him a shinigami, a regular procedure designed to protect the integrity of Meifu's system.

It was no official order that compelled Hisoka to this place that brought his senses so much torment. He was not completely sure of the reasons himself. Perhaps there had been something truthful about what Fujisawa had said to him the night before, about them being more similar than Hisoka cared to believe. He still did not believe that, yet he had come here because of that young man nonetheless, even though he could not explain it.

Fujisawa, or rather, his soul sat bent over in one of the chairs that was pushed against one wall, wearing a pressed suit that had been issued him by the department as per routine. It was only natural for Hisoka to maintain his distance, having been assaulted by that young man just a few hours before.

He did not sit down, instead opting to stand a little more than arm's length away as he spoke the deceased's name.

Fujisawa glanced up at him with nothing in his eyes. No resentment, no malice, nor any of his usual cockiness neither. That was what surprised Hisoka. He looked, simply, normal. "You came to see me, Kurosaki? I suppose this is just a taste of the punishment to come, huh? You gonna testify against me?"

"No," Hisoka said. "We don't do things that way here. Your crimes speak for themselves. For that matter, you don't really have to do anything: Your heart will do all the talking. Sort of. You'll soon find out for yourself."

"I don't know whether to take that as reassurance or a warning."

"I meant it as neither." Hisoka shrugged.

"Then why are you here, if not on official business? To put me at ease?" There was an uncharacteristic irony to the lopsided smile that pulled at Fujisawa's lips. "It's hard to believe even you would be that gracious, after all I did to you."

Hisoka knit his brows. "I don't know myself," he said after a moment's hesitation. "I guess . . . maybe I came for answers."

Fujisawa stared at him in mild surprise, until a hard edge of suspicion entered his gaze. "I don't have to tell you anything, then, do I? If I understand this right, your part in my case is ended. I have no obligation to explain myself in judgment, so I have even less to explain to you."

He held Hisoka's gaze that way defiantly, but only for a few awkward seconds. When he spoke again, it was in a small voice Hisoka hardly recognized as belonging to Fujisawa: "I'm going to Hell for what I did. I know that already. I'll be damned. There is no salvation for people who commit the sins I've committed, no matter how much faith we put in Christ's love, or the Eucharist, or Amida Buddha or any of that nonsense."

He forced a laugh, but Hisoka had nothing to add.

"This may sound strange," Fujisawa continued, "but I'm prepared for that. In a way, I've been prepared for that for much of my life. I always knew, even as I sat through my old school's mass, saying the proscribed words, how far away I was from God."

"But you're still terrified of it," Hisoka told him.

Momentarily taken aback that the other had read him so easily, Fujisawa nodded silently.

"I didn't come here because I take pity on you," Hisoka said. "I don't. I want to make that clear. And it's not within my power nor is it my place to forgive you. I can't excuse what you did to those men, and I hate you for what you did to me, but I know you didn't ask to be brought back to life either. Muraki's part in what you did can't be excused simply because he wasn't holding the knife. But I still can't help wondering: Why him? What could possibly make _him_ worth all this?"

Fujisawa smiled and snorted. "You'll never understand. If you can't see how similar you and I are then you'll never understand, no matter what I say. I couldn't disobey the one who made me. You know him as a monster, but he really was my savior. You think I'm an idiot for saying that, but he gave me life, Kurosaki, and I would have followed him to Hell for it. Now it looks like I will."

His eyes fixated on something over Hisoka's shoulder, something that only he could see in his mind's eye. "To make matters worse, he reminded me very strongly of someone."

"Okazaki Izuru," Hisoka muttered, looking at the floor.

"Has anyone ever told you this mind-reading thing of yours is really irritating?"

"I thought you wanted him dead."

"I did. But love and hate are just two sides of the same coin. I'm sure even you can understand that."

The sign above the door at the end of the hall lit up silently, and a lonely figure between it and the two boys rose to go through it. "Looks like I'm next," Fujisawa said, watching the person go.

"Then I'll take my leave."

He turned back to Hisoka. "I thought you came for answers."

"I think I came to the wrong place," Hisoka said quietly, adding more out of routine than actual feeling, "Excuse me."

As Hisoka turned to leave, he could hear Fujisawa singing behind him, though his voice cracked around the awkward English words: "The taste of love is sweet/ when hearts like ours meet/ I fell for you like a child/ O-oh, but the fire went wild. . . ."

What he had said to Hisoka continued to ring in his mind: _He gave me life . . ._ And Muraki gave me death, Hisoka thought, but were those two gifts really so different? Was that what Fujisawa was trying to tell him?

Was that what Tsubaki had been trying to tell him all those years ago? And would it have made any difference if he had understood back then? Her blood on his hands, Fujisawa's on his shirt, no matter how hard he scrubbed . . . had anything changed at all?

Hisoka left the tumult of old emotions behind him and headed back to the offices of the Summons Department, where he found Tsuzuki waiting for him. "Hisoka. Just the man I wanted to see." He seemed back to his normal, cheerful self, though past experience told Hisoka he could not be too sure how much credulity to put in such a transformation. "How did it go?"

"A waste of time," Hisoka sighed. He didn't want to discuss it. "I'm not sure what I expected. What's with the attitude?"

Tsuzuki seemed taken aback by the question, but only for a heartbeat. "While you were down there I spoke to Watari. He had something to say about those Hebrew characters you wrote down for me."

"What did they say?"

"According to Watari, it was part of an old pun, only not the humorous kind. More like the mystical kind." Tsuzuki explained as he leaned against the edge of the desk, reading from a piece of note paper: "From right to left it reads _emet_, which means truth. According to legend it was the magic word that brought the golem of Prague to life. He could only be stopped by erasing the first letter of the word, thus spelling the Hebrew word for death: _met_."

"Truth, huh?" That sounded like the kind of joke Muraki would make, Hisoka thought, the image of those three characters written across Fujisawa's forehead resurfacing in his mind. "Except Fujisawa was no golem. Just like Maria Wong was no vampire, and Tsubaki wasn't possessed. That was just another lie. He was just an ordinary person Muraki brought back to life." Hisoka would not have been surprised if the mark had turned out to be only for show, or if it had had more to do with his own reaction to it and his curse than Fujisawa.

"That's just like Muraki, then," Tsuzuki sighed as he pushed himself back on his feet. "Lying, I mean. Right, Hisoka?"

A strange sense of deja vu grabbed Hisoka for a moment that he had to shake himself out of. "Right."

"Why don't you grab your coat and let's go. Oh, and you might want to take one with a hood. It's still raining last I heard."

Hisoka furrowed his brows. "Where are we going?"

"Kumamoto," Tsuzuki said, as though it were obvious.

"But we just got back from there. And we have our reports to finish—"

"There's a lead there I want to follow up on." Tsuzuki seemed extraordinarily focused today, Hisoka decided, as he went about gathering up his own coat and slipping various items into the pockets.

But his choice of words gave Hisoka pause. "Lead?"

"Yeah. A possible contact of Muraki's. After police put Fujisawa's picture on the air, witnesses fingered some woman who had been putting him up—"

"Wait a minute, Tsuzuki. Back up," Hisoka stopped him. "What do you mean by lead? The case has been closed. We did what we set out to accomplish: We found out who was behind the murders, and we brought the perpetrator to justice. That's it. That was the scope of our role in this investigation."

"But Muraki is still out there!"

"Is this interrogation or whatever an official order?"

"It's off the record," Tsuzuki admitted.

Hisoka sighed his exasperation, but the intensity in Tsuzuki's purple eyes grabbed his attention. "But my point is he's unaccounted for, Hisoka. You can't mean to tell me that when we set out on his case, there wasn't a part of you that really thought, This time. This time, for sure, we were going to get him."

Maybe he had thought that. Then again, maybe he hadn't, and all Hisoka had really felt was a projection of Tsuzuki's own desire. He couldn't tell anymore.

If that's what we supposedly felt, Tsuzuki, then _why_ didn't you do away with Muraki when you had the chance? That question still weighed heavily on Hisoka's mind, though asking it and getting a straight answer was another matter entirely he could not be sure he was prepared for.

"Still, Tsuzuki," he tried halfheartedly, "I'm not so sure the chief would approve—"

"But isn't that a risk we have to take? He might thank us in the long run."

Hisoka closed his mouth and swallowed his protests, and went to grab his coat. He would not win this argument, even if he wanted to.

"When we're done there, let me take you out for something special, all right?" Tsuzuki said after him. "It's the least I can do after leaving you abruptly like that last night. And besides," he added carefully, "that's kind of what I told Tatsumi we were taking a longer lunch break for."

"Great, so now we're _lying_ about what we're doing, too," Hisoka muttered under his breath, but his heart wasn't in the sarcasm.

He happened to feel eyes on himself and Tsuzuki and looked up, meeting Tatsumi's gaze. The secretary was in the middle of a conversation with Terazuma, but for a moment his attention had drifted elsewhere. Hisoka couldn't be sure what it was, but something passed between them in that short couple of heartbeats. Something sorrowful that flashed behind those old-fashioned glasses when there was no reflection from the fluorescent lights to mask his eyes. They seemed to be begging Hisoka to be careful—but even that could have been just a product of Hisoka's imagination.

-o-

"This is the number," Tsuzuki said outside the door.

While he knocked, Hisoka took in the opulence of their surroundings. The hotel they had been led to obviously catered to a very selective clientele by its rich and immaculate appearance—quite a contrast to their humble accommodations the week before. It was, however, perfectly in line with what he had come to expect from an associate of Muraki. Hisoka felt equally confident about what kind of person they would find living behind it.

They heard the dead bolt click, and a second later the door opened inward a small ways. Far enough for both parties to examine one another, not enough to be mistaken for a welcome.

The one who greeted them was a stunning woman just entering her middle age. Her clothing and makeup were impeccable, not overstated but subtly enhancing her natural elegant beauty. She was a figure of careful grace and mental composure, disrupted only by the severe line of her mouth and eyes that told the shinigami immediately that, whatever she may be, she would not be intimidated by the likes of them. That, Hisoka had to admit, he had not been expecting.

"Can I help you?" she said in a cultured tone of voice that had the equal effect of being quite cold.

"Ah, sorry to bother you, Mrs Komatsu." Tsuzuki, of course, started turning on the charm immediately. "We haven't yet made your acquaintance, but my partner and I were hoping to have an opportunity to speak to you about something rather sensitive. Let me assure you, first of all, that we are not with the police—"

"I know who you are, servants of Yomi."

That archaic name made Tsuzuki pause for a moment, during which Hisoka filled in for him, "I know you've already been interviewed, ma'am, about your involvement with a boy named Fujisawa, so forgive us for troubling you. But we're not here about that. We wish to speak with you," he said cautiously, watching her reaction, "about a man named Muraki."

But Mrs Komatsu only let out a small sigh at that. "Of course you do. I've been expecting something like this for the last couple of days. Forgive me if I am not quick to invite you in for tea."

"We have no intention of harming you," Tsuzuki said, "but I doubt very much you want your neighbors to hear what we have to say."

"Naturally." Hisoka noted her Kyoto accent with curiosity. "Do you think I'm afraid of a couple of shinigami? I am after all an acquaintance of—as you say—a man named Muraki."

Mrs Komatsu opened the door further and moved aside, thereby inviting the two into her apartment. It was a long room, impeccable as the lobby and hallways, but the closed curtains and rainy day behind them turned everything dark and dull—as dark and impenetrable as the mood of the mistress of the house. As the shinigami stepped into the room, she locked the door behind them, then gestured for them to sit at the small table before the windows where a tea set with one setting had been placed.

"We can't stay long," Tsuzuki said, even as he took a seat. Hisoka and Mrs Komatsu followed suit, the latter with the delicate grace of royalty. It made Hisoka wonder just what she was for Muraki to have known her well enough to be able to pull such a favor as giving shelter to a strange boy. Tsuzuki's eyes never left the woman's. "We only came to ask you what you know about him."

"Where to start?" the woman said as she poured herself a cup of coffee so strong it invigorated Hisoka just to smell it. "I've known Muraki for a long time, Mr Shinigami. Although it is difficult to say just how much anyone really _knows_ that man, isn't it? Where the doctor ends and where the real Muraki begins, if there is even such a person, even I cannot say."

"I'm sorry," Tsuzuki said. "Just how long have you known him?"

She sighed as she returned her cup to its saucer. "You certainly don't waste any time getting to your point. What a personal question."

Tsuzuki did not miss a beat. "Please disregard it then. It's just that we need to find him. It's a matter of the utmost importance to our ministry, Mrs Komatsu—"

"Kaede, if you please."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You should call me Kaede," she annunciated. "That was the name by which Muraki knew me best, in our younger days. It strikes me as more appropriate, given the circumstances. If you are to understand the man you are searching for, that is."

Hisoka glanced over at Tsuzuki, but if his partner's momentum was shaken by the woman's words or her manner, he did not show it. His determination was stronger than any other factor; Hisoka felt that clearly within himself.

"_Miss Kaede_, then," Tsuzuki humored her, "would you happen to have any knowledge of Muraki's whereabouts? Any safe houses he might have, that sort of thing? Has he been in communication with you since last night?"

A wry smile turned up the corner of her mouth. "I have no wish to be kept abreast of the doctor's affairs, and he has no need to make them known to me."

"And what assurance do we have that you're not simply covering for him?"

"I haven't any reason to lie."

"Yet you abetted that boy he brought here, according to your neighbors' statements to the police."

Mrs Komatsu's expression soured at that. "I am not proud of what I've done," she said in a low voice. "I wish to think of myself as a respectable widow, but I cannot excuse my actions either. While I may have been mistaken about many things, I acted out of good faith in someone who was once like family to me, and _that_ decision I stand by. I have suffered enough from rumor and the loss of my husband, Mr Shinigami, and now this latest development." She shook her head slowly as she stared him down. "Must you add this insult to my already long list of injuries?"

Hisoka could stand it no longer, this measured game back and forth between the two. The careful language that reminded him of his own family disgusted him. He spoke up, not caring how rude he sounded: "And you think you're the only one that man has hurt?"

Mrs Komatsu looked offended herself as she said to him, "I made no claim to be. Why? What grievance has he given you, boy?"

"This is my grievance." Hisoka pushed up the sleeve of his coat and his shirt, and raised his arm so she could see the scars of the curse underneath. "That man tortured me, cursed me, and, when he felt I had finally suffered enough, he murdered me. I became a shinigami to hunt him down and make him pay for his crimes against those who were not as lucky as I have been to have a second chance. I don't know what kind of man you think he is, Miss Kaede," he told her point blank, "but I know personally how disturbed and evil he really is. I've actually looked into that soul and felt it for myself, which I'm sure is more than you've done. So if you are intentionally trying to protect him, then I will have no choice but to take your actions as in direct opposition to King Enma himself. You can take that as a threat if you want to."

Hisoka started when he realized what he had just said. But when he reexamined his words, he could not find a single one he did not mean. He could not say the same for Tsuzuki, however, who sat in somewhat stunned silence beside him, or Mrs Komatsu, who continued to glare unwelcomingly at him.

After a moment, however, she actually cracked a smile.

"You must be the boy my brother Oriya spoke of," she said in a gentler tone of voice.

That threw Hisoka for a loop. It was not just that his crude manner had had an effect completely opposite of what he had expected. That name rang a bell. Wasn't it the name of Muraki's friend in Kyoto—the one who had risked his life to protect a friend he knew was a monster?

He had spoken of Hisoka to this woman? "You're related?" Hisoka said, feeling foolish.

Mrs Komatsu took a deep breath as she picked up her coffee cup again. "Not by blood, and not anymore. However, like my brother, I am confident I can hold my own against a shinigami if the need arose."

"Stop trying to change the subject."

"Fine." She turned back to Tsuzuki, completely disregarding Hisoka. "I am not trying to protect Muraki. The way I see things, he owes me for my troubles. Nor, however, can I turn against someone who is like family to my family. Forgive me if my sense of morality seems a bit archaic."

"I think I understand," Tsuzuki said with a short nod, and Hisoka could not help feeling that was meant for him. "However."

"However," Mrs Komatsu echoed, lowering her cup, "I am not given to lying either, and can honestly say I have no better idea than you two do as to where he might have gone. Doubtless the police will put pressure on him to go into hiding, and he has never let me in on the whereabouts of his various hiding places. Nor has Oriya—if he even knows that much himself."

She furrowed her delicate brows as she looked down at the coffee and continued, "Truth be told, last Thursday was the first time in almost a decade I had had contact of any sort with him. However, I will tell you one place you might want to start, though I might be mistaken in doing so."

"It's better to be safe than sorry," Tsuzuki said, leaning forward.

"Being sorry is exactly what I'm worried about, Mr Shinigami! I doubt you or I want to involve someone else in this mess of ours if that person proved to be innocent."

But that was not the whole of it, Hisoka could feel. She feared saying what she wanted to say because of what Muraki might do to her if he found out, not because of what might happen to that person. The conflict was expressed subtly in her features and poise, but to him that was clear enough.

On the other hand, he could feel her hatred for that man as well—a hatred not at all like his own, but mixed up with a sentimentality Hisoka could not understand. He wondered if she was aware of how loudly she broadcasted her feelings where Muraki was concerned, despite her carefully composed veneer.

She made her decision with a blink, and raised her eyes to Tsuzuki's: "But I think you should know that Muraki has a fiancee in Tokyo by the name of Ukyo. I don't know much about her, other than that their engagement was decided when they were children, and he has been trying to break his ties with her for some time. I can only presume that is for her own sake. Contrary to what your experiences may tell you, he is not completely devoid of human compassion."

Hisoka snorted at that but Mrs Komatsu ignored him.

"She might know only as much as I do, but it's a starting point. That is what you wanted, isn't it, Mr Shinigami?"

"Yes," Tsuzuki said. As though a great weight had been lifted from him. "Thank you."

"Then, if you don't mind?" she said, standing, and the two did the same, allowing themselves to be led to the door.

"Promise me one thing," Mrs Komatsu said to them before she opened it, her voice low in the intimate space of the foyer. She seemed suddenly small and insecure, like a teenage girl, and the effect with what she said next, and the meaning with which she said it, was to Hisoka somewhat disorienting. "Even if you must lie," she said, "if only to soothe my conscience: Promise me that when you catch up to that man, you will kill him."

It was those words that continued to resonate with Hisoka when he and Tsuzuki stopped by a posh cafe for a noontime drink and dessert. Love and hate were just two sides of the same coin, Fujisawa had said to him only that morning; and though it had sounded like a cliched movie tag line at the time, there was something to be said for how well it pertained to the emotions that had been emanating from Mrs Komatsu like crazy.

The silence that followed that observation made Hisoka stop, and he realized he had been pretty much talking to himself. It was almost always the other way around. "Tsuzuki?" he asked his partner, who was presently staring out the window over his shoulder.

That shook Tsuzuki out of it. He blinked. "I'm sorry, Hisoka. What were you saying?"

"Nothing important. I just thought you might want my impressions of that Komatsu woman."

"Oh." Tsuzuki picked up his fork and traced its teeth over the ridges in his dessert plate's lip. He smiled apologetically. "I guess my mind was elsewhere."

That went without saying. Hisoka knitted his brow. Tsuzuki hadn't taken a single bite of his strawberry and kiwi tart. It still sat there looking as pristine as it had in the case when he had ordered it. And he had seemed so eager to bring Hisoka here. . . .

Hisoka calmly let his hand slide from cradling his coffee mug to lie in his lap, and it was all he could do not to wring his hands in anxiety. "Tsuzuki," he said quietly, "what did Muraki say to you last night?"

Tsuzuki's smile wavered for only a second before he caught it, held onto it, and lowered his eyes. "Why are you asking me that all of a sudden?"

"Why do you think? Because it's obviously bothering you."

"No, it isn't. I _have_ been reviewing what happened in my mind, but I do that to some extent after every case."

"Not like this, you don't. And you haven't even touched your dessert."

Tsuzuki's fork stopped. Hisoka did not need to say it in so many words, but they both knew it was a rare occurrence indeed when he was not able to stomach sweets. The senior shinigami put down the fork and went for his coffee cup instead, as though to cover for his transparency. "That doesn't mean anything," he murmured before taking a sip.

"Fine. Whatever you say. But you and I know that isn't true. I knew something like this would happen—"

"Something like _what_? I don't know what you're talking about, Hisoka. I feel _fine_."

"You think it isn't obvious?" Hisoka lowered his eyes. "Every time Muraki gets you alone you come back like this, acting all cheerful and refusing to say a word about it, when you're really berating yourself inside, and I just can't stand it."

Tsuzuki stared at him blankly, and Hisoka had the feeling that had not come out the way he had intended it.

Suddenly self-conscious, he said quieter, "I can't stand to see what it does to you. I'm worried about you, Tsuzuki. I'm afraid you're going to hurt yourself again, and as your partner I can't just stand by and allow that to happen. That's why I wish you would open up to me." Beneath the table, he twisted the napkin on his lap in his fist. "I wish you would trust me."

"I do trust you, Hisoka."

His smile was breaking Hisoka's heart. "Just not that much?" he murmured. "Or is it because you don't trust yourself?" Hisoka wished he knew, but Tsuzuki remained a blank to him. It was not like Hisoka to want to open himself up to the pain of others, but knowing anything would be better than this.

"I really am okay," Tsuzuki continued to insist, in that same nonchalant manner.

"Really?" Hisoka bit his lip as he stared at the dark surface of the coffee growing cold in his cup. "Well, I'm not. When I told you I was all right last night, I really wasn't."

Tsuzuki finally lowered his gaze. "I thought so. I just figured you didn't want to talk about it."

"Do you want to know what that guy did to me while you were with Muraki?" Of course he didn't, but that was precisely why Hisoka was going to tell him. "He had me restrained by a summoning circle. Then, when I couldn't move or use any magic, he cut my wrist open and sucked out my blood, somehow called up the curse Muraki put on me all over again, and when that wasn't enough for him, he tried to rape me. He might have, too, if Jun hadn't come to when he did and set me free."

Tsuzuki stubbornly looked away, out at the rain, saying nothing. The smile faded from his lips.

"The whole time I kept waiting for you to show up like you always do," Hisoka went on after a pause, "but you never did. It made me so angry at the time because I trusted you to always have my back, and when I thought you had forgotten about me I couldn't reconcile that. That was, of course, until I understood that I wasn't the only one of us who had it bad."

"I'm sorry, Hisoka," Tsuzuki could only whisper. "I wish things could have turned out differently, but . . . I had no idea."

"I realize that," Hisoka said quickly, "and once I had time to think, I realized it was selfish of me to blame you for any of it." He realized, too, that maybe he had not made the best decision just now in saying all that he did. Wasn't he just adding to the pain Tsuzuki already carried inside him? He was hurting so bad. It was clear on his face, which he tried so hard to make look alright with everything that came his way. "I just thought I should be honest with you. I thought—"

"You thought if you told me, I would have to tell you what happened between Muraki and me."

Hisoka felt the blood rush to his face in shame. He had been foolish, arrogant. Not that it was entirely his intention to casually guilt-trip the person he cared about most when he was so obviously suffering . . . but wasn't that what he had done nonetheless?

"It isn't something that concerns you, Hisoka," Tsuzuki said. "That's all. It isn't that I don't trust you. You've been hurt enough by Muraki, and much of that on account of me."

"Tsuzuki—"

"But if you really trust me, then you've got to understand that and believe me when I say it's all right." He flashed the same smile again, but it was even more fragile and transparent than before, if possible. "So, please, for both our sakes, just let it go."

And if I can't believe you, that means this partnership is a lie? Hisoka couldn't believe that.

You idiot, he thought, I'm only doing this for you. But he couldn't figure out who that idiot was supposed to be: Tsuzuki or himself.

-o-

That night Hisoka dreamed like he hadn't in many years: that he was wandering in a fog trying to catch up to Tsuzuki, but just when he would get close, his partner would move out of reach and deeper into the mist. He always knew Tsuzuki was just a little ways ahead, but whenever he disappeared, Hisoka was hit with that sinking feeling of dread that he would never catch up to him again, and that frightened him. Don't shut me out, Tsuzuki, he tried to say, but nothing came out. The fog swallowed up all sound anyway.

He woke feeling less rested than he had in months. It took a while to quell the feeling of disorientation that came with waking, the dream had felt so real. So real that when he did come back to his apartment, he cursed Tsuzuki's name into his pillow, though he knew he was being irrational. It was, after all, just a dream, and no fault of his partner's.

A splash of cool water on his face brought him properly back into the waking world, and then he headed to the office the same way he did every morning.

When Tsuzuki did not show up at his usual time, Hisoka did not think much of it. Likewise when another hour had passed. Sometime after that, he called Tsuzuki's number, but only got voicemail. Knowing how much stress they had been under the last few days, Hisoka shrugged it off as Tsuzuki most likely oversleeping. That's what he told Terazuma and Wakaba when they asked where that bum partner of his was, but after a while even he wasn't sure he believed it.

It was after noon by the time he thought of asking Tatsumi when he came by if he had heard from Tsuzuki at all that day. The secretary gave him a puzzled look as he said slowly, "No, I can't say that I have. But I was thinking of asking you the same thing."

"Not a word." Hisoka shook his head. "He isn't answering his phone either. Tatsumi, do you think something could have happened to him?"

"Whatever else he is, he's always been good about calling in when he's feeling too under the weather to come to work."

That decided the matter for Hisoka. "I'm going to go check on him, then," he said, reaching for his coat. Tatsumi voiced no objection. His expression told Hisoka he was just as concerned about his old partner as the boy was. It made Hisoka wonder if Tatsumi knew something he didn't.

He arrived at the apartment to find it dark and quiet, an air hovering about it like a place that has been unoccupied for some time. Tsuzuki was not there, nor were there any of the usual signs that he would soon be back. No half-read books lying open on the coffee table, no empty glasses near the couch or dishes in the sink, nor any of the hastily removed and forgotten ties that sometimes draped the back of the armchair. Put simply, it seemed Tsuzuki had just up and left.

It was several minutes before Hisoka could shake himself out of his incredulous stare and call up Tatsumi to tell him what he had found. "It's probably nothing to worry about," the secretary told him, though by the tone of his voice, even he did not seem so sure. "When he was in between partners, he would disappear to Chijou or Gensoukai for days at a time."

Hisoka hadn't the heart to tell him how much he doubted it was anything that simple or innocent. He did not have it in him to say, based on nothing but his gut feeling, that he didn't think Tsuzuki was coming back any time soon.

-o-

Since before he could remember, the flickering candles of the souls of the living had been a strange source of comfort to the Count whose duty it was to watch over them. Others might have found it macabre to say so, another sign of his eccentricity, proof he had been cooped up there alone too long, but he saw things a different way. They were the physical manifestations of people's efforts to keep on living the best that they could. In the land of the dead, and particularly in his dark prison of a manor, one often needed reassurances such as that to get through the day.

Now was one of those times. After his meeting with King Enma the night before, he craved the familiarity of those candles' warmth. No matter what the weather or time of day, that most intimate of his lord's chambers always found a way of chilling him to the bone, even after all these centuries.

Tsuzuki had disappeared, Enma told him in private, from the other side of a reed screen. In response, he had felt he had no other choice than to deploy a unit of his peacekeeping forces to find him and bring him back. At all costs.

"At all costs?" the Count had echoed. "Don't you think that's overdoing it, your honor? This is Tsuzuki we're talking about."

"Which is precisely why I must take such thorough measures." Enma's voice hardened, and the Count could feel him narrowing his eyes as he peered at him through the screen, if not through his soul. "There is no audience here before which you need put up this front of ignorance. You know as well as I do what that man is capable of."

The Count saw no need to confirm that aloud.

"Tsuzuki Asato must not be allowed to awaken to his true power," Enma went on when he was silent. "If he does, it may well be disastrous for all our worlds. Not only Meifu, Count, but the world above ground, Gensoukai, even Hell itself. That is why he must be apprehended _at all costs_. Must I make myself any clearer?"

At that, the Count gritted his teeth to restrain his outrage. The demon king already knew how he felt without his needing to express it. "No, my lord, that is not necessary. It just doesn't seem fair to the child, is all."

"Fairness is irrelevant. You have been coddling that man for far too long, Count: You forget your place. We must be prepared for the possibility that Tsuzuki has grown sympathetic to Muraki Kazutaka's cause, or that he will in the near future. We cannot afford to allow his failure to destroy the doctor to be overlooked as mere incompetence any longer. If said failure is indeed revealed to be an act of treason, it must be dealt with as such for the preservation of this ministry. Do not make me ask you with whom your greatest loyalty lies: your king, or one mere shinigami."

The Count had no desire to answer such a question himself, lest he discover something about himself in the process he could not reconcile. He kept his mouth shut, even though it pained him to go along with such a plan. That was not what he wished for Tsuzuki. He knew King Enma was right to take such precautions, but he could not wish them on Tsuzuki, no matter what he had done.

But one point of Enma's he did take great exception to: One _mere_ shinigami Tsuzuki was not. If that's all he was, their great and wise king would not feel such a need to call out his full force just to find him.

"My Count?" his steward Watson's weak, rattling voice interrupted his meditations. "Sorry to disturb you, sir, but you have a visitor."

The Count clenched his jaw. The last thing he wanted right now was to have to explain the situation to Konoe, or worse, his impertinent secretary. "Tell the chief I will speak to him some other time more appropriate."

"I-it isn't the chief, sir. It's Mr Kurosaki."

The Count's eyes widened. "Kurosaki?" The boy had actually come here? That was certainly unusual, and therefore not to be ignored.

-o-

Hisoka did not have long to wait for Watson to reappear, and this time he was accompanied by the Count of the manor, disguised as he usually was by a half-mask that rendered him invisible but for it and his gloves. It made Hisoka regret that he had come, but only for a moment, because it gave him the impression—however unfounded—that the Count would not take anything he had to say seriously.

In which case, he would just have to make sure he got his feelings across. He stood immediately and closed the distance between them himself.

"Why is Tsuzuki being treated like a criminal?" he demanded to know before the Count could get out a word. "They're saying King Enma has issued his special forces a warrant for Tsuzuki's arrest, that he's been labeled a renegade and possible traitor." Hisoka clenched his fists. "Tsuzuki hasn't done anything wrong, so what reason would Enma have to treat him this way? Tell me, Count! What that hell is going on?"

"Please calm yourself, Kurosaki," the Count said, but did not seem at all put off by Hisoka's rudeness. "Where have you heard this?"

Hisoka took a deep breath, but he did not feel it necessary to keep any detail from the Count, of all people.

"Kazuma told us. She knew how concerned we are about him, so she told our department when the order came down. She says it's superseded everything else in the Peacekeeping Division, and that some of her colleagues are already saying how eager they are to put Tsuzuki in his place." Hisoka looked down at the floor as the meaning of what he had just said finally and fully sunk in. "'In his place'? What did he ever do to them? What did he ever do to make Enma think he deserves this?"

"It isn't as simple as that, Kurosaki. Be reasonable. King Enma bases his decision on decades of experience—"

"It's bullshit." Maybe I shouldn't have come, Hisoka began to think. What did I honestly think I would accomplish? "And I can't believe you of all people would buy it—"

"If I seem to have 'bought' anything, Kurosaki, it's because it is what my master believes to be in the best interest of this world! Do you think that means I must feel the same way personally?" the Count said, putting a hand to where his breast would be. "I thought you knew me well enough by now not to accuse me of such an outrageous thing. That I would wish this upon Tsuzuki myself—"

"What do you care about Tsuzuki's well-being, beyond what concerns you?" Hisoka said without thinking. "Are you afraid of losing him or your plaything?"

Before he could say anything more, the Count grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to his chest.

Hisoka panicked. He was sure the other's lecherous and conceited thoughts would overwhelm him in an instant at such close contact, but he was wrong. Nothing came from the Count that disgusted him. Rather, he simply felt as though the pain he carried in his chest since Tsuzuki's disappearance had been magnified tenfold, so that it took a moment before he realized what he was in fact receiving from the Count. The Count was mirroring his emotions—or rather, they were the same.

And they hurt so bad. Like being run through with his own tanto's blade, except the source of this pain could not be pulled out.

The Count squeezed Hisoka tighter, and rather than try to escape, Hisoka held onto the man's body, clad—though invisible—in the warm, rich fabric of a Western suit. The feelings transferring straight into him forced tears from Hisoka's eyes, but he wasn't ashamed of them. He was more confused than anything else. He had thought the Count's feelings toward Tsuzuki were much shallower than this, but now it seemed he had been the shallow one. There had simply been no way for him to know before.

"I'm sorry to do that to you, Kurosaki," the Count said when he finally released him, "knowing how sensitive you are to such things, but it was the only way I could get my true feelings across. Somehow I didn't think you would believe me if I simply told you in words how I felt. But now you know just how concerned about Tsuzuki and how frightened for him I am, just like yourself. Now you know I'm no less angered by this situation than you are. Frankly I resent that you would presume otherwise."

Hisoka wiped the tears from his face with the heel of his hand. Now that the connection between them was broken, they didn't seem like his own. "I don't understand," he swallowed, "how all this could happen so fast."

He shouldn't have expected a proper answer after his rude behavior initially, Hisoka knew, but the Count seemed to have already brushed it off. He leaned close to Hisoka so that he could murmur in his ear. "Then please accompany me to the garden so I can explain things better. I would feel much more comfortable speaking freely there."

Once they were out in the open air, amid the dense spring foliage of one corner of the yard where their voices could not echo, he was content to open up once again.

"Like I said before, I don't necessarily agree with Enma's decision, I think his honor is being too hasty, but my hands are tied. He is my master and I have no choice but to obey him. Even if I wished to oppose his decision, I can barely leave this castle. There is very little I can do. I am constrained by my circumstances."

"You're talking to me," Hisoka tried.

"Yes, and I fear that is probably more than I should be doing. I should have had Watson turn you out, knowing your intentions here."

"My intentions?"

The Count turned to him. "You came to me seeking answers, did you not?"

That Hisoka could not refute. Rather than answer, he lowered his eyes. "None of this makes sense to me. Tsuzuki's been gone only a few days, and already King Enma is accusing him of treason. His honor wouldn't do that without a very good reason. So, yeah, I guess I came hoping to learn what that reason is, because it's obviously something beyond what I've learned since coming here."

The other forced a curious laugh. "Is it, Kurosaki? Is it really? Do you really need your empathic abilities to discern where the crux of his concern lies?"

"Then it does have something to do with Tsuzuki's power, doesn't it?"

When the Count did not answer, Hisoka decided to take his lack of response as an affirmative.

"I was jealous of his ability to control twelve powerful shikigami when I couldn't even avenge my own death," he admitted. "That's why I pestered Tsuzuki into taking me to Gensoukai. But now I'm not so sure it was so much _whom_ he commanded that I was jealous of as how _completely_. He pulls people in toward him, like his heart exerts a kind of gravity well of its own." Hisoka shook his head at himself. "I don't really know how to describe it."

"I think that's as good a description as any." The Count was smiling again. "The Greeks called that charisma: a divinely conferred grace."

"That's why we've all come to depend on his presence. Even Terazuma is worried sick. But can a gift like that really be so dangerous?"

"Depending on whom one attracts to himself, and what he compels them to do? Yes. I believe Enma recognizes the leader Tsuzuki has the potential within himself to be, and realizes the rival he has in that child."

Hisoka looked away. "Which explains why he would view Tsuzuki as a traitor. Even if Tsuzuki didn't _use_ the power he has, he would still have the potential to be a threat to King Enma's authority."

The Count nodded slowly. "Or, if Enma got his way, Tsuzuki could make his authority absolute. I have no desire to see either come to pass. And I have little doubt that if Tsuzuki knew he was being used, he could split this world into two opposing factions all too easily. Especially if he were under Dr Muraki's influence."

Hisoka started at that. He turned to the Count in disbelief, saying, "No. You've got him all wrong. Tsuzuki would never work with Muraki, under any circumstances. He hates that man more than anything. That's why he left in the first place! He was talking about finding a 'lead' to Muraki's whereabouts. He wants to put this right, fix what he failed to do before. That isn't treason, Count, it's an act of loyalty! I know the only reason he went alone is to protect me. And even though I don't agree with that, and I know it's against policy, I can't say I wouldn't do the same thing for him. Doesn't that mean I'm just as guilty as he is?"

"I don't doubt his intentions, Kurosaki. But it has long been Muraki's goal to awaken Tsuzuki's true power and use it for his own purpose, and that cannot be ignored."

"His true power," Hisoka echoed under his breath. "What exactly is he?"

"The child of a forbidden union between a human woman and a demon," the Count said without missing a beat—which made Hisoka wonder what motive the Count must have for telling him of such a thing, if it was so forbidden.

Muttering a quiet curse, Hisoka asked, "Does Tsuzuki know that?"

"No one knows that," said the other, "except myself and Enma, and now you, Kurosaki. And I beg you not to tell him. If you love Tsuzuki half as much as I do, then you know what that knowledge would do to him. You know how much it would hurt him."

Yes, Hisoka knew that well enough. Although a part of him could not help wondering, If I were in Tsuzuki's place, would I want to know the truth about myself? That was a question he did not have an answer to.

"Even Enma doesn't know the whole truth," the Count continued. "He knows what Tsuzuki is, but that is where even his omniscience ends. I alone know the identity of Tsuzuki's father, and that I will not tell you. I am taking a risk saying even that much. That secret is my burden to bear for as long as I am confined to this place, even should my sentence be for eternity. What is eternity to an immortal anyway? Or death, for that matter, but an end that cannot come soon enough?"

He turned away so that Hisoka was looking at the back of his mask as he said: "No sentence can be as unendurable as the pain of bearing that secret, but it is what I must do. That child is more dear to me than anything in this world. I know that is difficult for you to understand, Kurosaki, seeing how cruelly I treat him from an outsider's perspective, but you must believe me when I say I only do it for his own good. It is the only way I can touch him, the only way I can stand the sheer agony of being in his presence. He is all I have left. The thought of losing him is—" He fought uncharacteristically for words. "It's more frightening to me than anything."

Listening to the Count say such things about his partner, Hisoka was at a loss. Wouldn't it, by the other's own admission, just make things more difficult for Hisoka to know these things? "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because no one else has been able to reach Tsuzuki through his darkness in all this time but you, Kurosaki," the Count said, turning to face him. "That child . . . so giving to others, but he's impenetrable when anyone tries to help him. You alone could save him from himself, from Muraki. You know that already, don't you?"

"Tatsumi has told me the same thing."

"He sees the same strength in you that I do. The same strength the rest of us, in one way or another, lack."

Hisoka knitted his brows. "But it didn't seem to do any good this time."

In response, the Count took Hisoka's shoulders in his gloved hands, and Hisoka felt as transparent as the Count himself in that grip. "Do not give up on him, Kurosaki! I urge you not to give up, no matter what."

"But I don't _want_ to give up! That isn't the problem. I care about him too much to just sit idly by and let Enma and Muraki play tug of war with his future. He's still my partner, and I love him too much to do that. I just don't know what to _do_! Nothing quite like this has happened before. Even when Tsuzuki was possessed by that devil, it was alright because Tsuzuki wasn't the real enemy. But now he is, and I don't know how I'm supposed to take that!" Who am I supposed to side with, when I don't even know what to trust, what to believe? "I think, ultimately, that's the real reason I came here."

The Count's hands dropped to his sides. "If that's the case," he said, "then I cannot help you. I cannot remain loyal to my master while I give you guidance that undermines his efforts. You, and the Summons Division, must decide for yourselves what you do next.

"What I will say, however, is this: Find Tsuzuki before Enma's dogs in the Peacekeeping Division do. I cannot encourage you to break Meifu law, but you must understand the importance of doing this. If you cannot do it for my sake, then do it for his."

Jaw set with determination, Hisoka nodded. He did not intend to have it any other way.

-o-

The sky over Tokyo was overcast and the air carried with it the chill of autumn, but Ukyo was surrounded by color. The roses in her garden were in the last weeks of their period of summer bloom. They filled the air around them with their scent, each one slightly different and unique, each one carefully chosen for another.

Most of the plants she had now reminded of her childhood fiance, though they had not spoken face-to-face in ages. That was his doing, she knew with her own well-being in mind. He would not tell her what horrible things he had done for that distance to become necessary—what strong but tiny kernel of his old humanity remained within him would not allow him to—but Oriya had been much more forthcoming. The irony of keeping such beautiful living things that tied her to such a beautiful monster was not lost on Ukyo, but there was a more practical reason to their predominance: Muraki's roses tended to outlive all the others.

She went from one bush to the next, first deadheading it and then cutting the stems most suitable for displaying indoors. It was a slow process if not particularly a painstaking one, and an old coffee can with water covering its bottom kept the stalks she had already cut from drying out. Not that there was any fear of them wilting.

After a short while, she stopped to straighten her back and tighten the knotted handkerchief that kept her dark hair from falling into her face. It was upon doing so that she spotted the stranger slowly approaching her gate.

Upon first glance, he looked like a figure who had stepped out of a different time—like a lonely film noir character suddenly transported from the silver screen into this modern Tokyo suburb. It was not particularly cool, but he wore a long black trench coat over his black suit and tie and white shirt. His pale skin and dark, rakish hair were likewise devoid of color.

His eyes, however, were an entirely different matter. Their burgundy irises shone with a vibrancy that the rest of him was doing its best to cover up.

But it was his sad-looking smile that struck Ukyo with a strange sense of deja vu she could not will away. Something in it, taken together with the shape of his face—something she could not put her finger on, reminded her uncannily of _him_. It sparked a queer feeling within her, like she had known this person all her life, yet she could say with absolute certainty they had never met before.

When he came to a stop outside her gate, he called out: "What beautiful roses."

It was just like something _he_ would have said. "I'm afraid the man who gave them to me deserves the credit for that," she said, removing her gloves and slapping the loose dirt from them against her thigh.

"You don't say," he said curiously, as though to himself. Then: "I'm sorry. I'm looking for a woman named Ukyo."

There was nothing unusual in that, but she found herself saying nonetheless without thinking, "I think I've been expecting you."

He tilted his head at that and flashed her a charming smile. "We haven't met before, have we?"

"No. But I know why you're here."

She also knew somehow that his presence was an ill omen, like a crow on her fence, but she opened the gate for him. There was something intangible about him that told her they shared a common purpose, born of a common acquaintance, and the common hurt that resulted from it. They were also both, in some sense, on the run, and she felt a defiant sense of kinship with the stranger because of it.

I will protect this man, she said to herself—more a prophecy than a vow—though she did not know from what. Only that she recalled swearing the same upon an orphaned, broken boy of seventeen two decades ago. This time, however, she would not make the same mistake.


End file.
